Any Port in a Storm
by Imrryr
Summary: Marian Hawke, Isabela, Merrill, and an adventure on the high seas, featuring pirates, magical mirrors, demons, and Hawke's butt as a major plot point. From a Dragon Age universe where the Hawke family never went to Kirkwall. Purple Hawke/Isabela/Merrill. Femslash.
1. Chapter 1

AN - Never written the ot3 before, but here goes ^^

What happens to Kirkwall without Hawke to become its Champion? I dunno. Things falls apart a bit more rapidly, one would suppose, but that isn't particularly important to the story. In this version of history, the Hawke family escaped to the Free Marches, but for one reason or another never made it to Kirkwall. For years, Hawke makes her life as a mercenary and adventurer to provide for her family, but the fallout from her most recent adventure has left her in way over her head. Soon to be literally.  
Oh, if only a beautiful pirate queen would come to her rescue…

Currently Rated T – Subject to change tho. Depends on the smut muse, tbh.

* * *

 _Any Port in a Storm_ by Imrryr

Chapter 1

...

" **Ocean** , noun. A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man — who has no gills."

― Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

…

The rolling waves glittered like jewels in the afternoon sun, endless and beautiful, bringing back long forgotten memories of dewy ears of grain sweeping back and forth on a warm Lothering morning, stretching from horizon to horizon. As a little girl, she used to watch the fields and dream she was out here, out on the sea that her father always spoke so fondly of.

She had longed for that day. Anything to take her far, far away from Lothering. Far from the Templars. Far from the whispering people who were always one misstep away from discovering her family's secret. Far from the boring, sedentary life her parents wished for her.

It almost brought a tear to her eye to think about it, to think about how far she'd come.

"Well," Hawke said to herself as another wave crashed against her. "This sucks."

The tropical sun had long ago burned her fair and exposed skin to a deep red. Unfortunately, that meant just about every inch of her with possible exception of the soles of her feet. The qunari hadn't been kind enough to allow her to keep the remains of the rags they'd found her in when they dumped her here. Maybe they hadn't appreciated her sense of humor. Bethany always said it would get her killed someday.

She frowned. A black spot lingered on the western horizon. A ship, probably, but with the glare of the sun on the rolling waves, and the exhaustion permeating every inch of her shivering body, it was a little hard to be sure. Perhaps the qunari had returned to finish her off. Perhaps the acting captain finally understood that joke Hawke had made about how horny the crew must be as they stripped her and marooned her on this spit of sand in the middle of the Amaranthine Ocean; a spit of sand that had sunk hours ago under a rising tide which was only growing higher. Was that really worth killing someone over?

Well, possibly. The joke had been pretty bad.

Minutes passed, or hours - who could say – yet the black spot lingered before finally splitting into two. Either the dreadnought was breaking up, or there was another ship out there.

Or, she was losing her mind.

Also a distinct possibility.

A particularly tall wave doused her face, leaving her spitting and gasping in the foamy water. Her throat burned worse than her skin with thirst, but she knew better than to slake it here. Holding herself tightly in the waist deep seas, she imagined the people back home laughing at her plight, laughing at her for ever dreaming of leaving their cozy, boring little hamlet.

Hawke tried to imagine herself as a farmer: tending to her malodorous livestock, huddling around an inadequate fire during the long winter, year after year after year, chatting to the same people every day about the weather. She groaned. It sounded like a very slow death.

Another wave doused her and she shut her eyes. Of course, there was no Lothering. Not anymore.

And no one there had died a slow death.

Not like Hawke was about to.

Stupid irony.

It took some time, but eventually one of those black dots had drawn close enough for her to make out six in a small boat as it rode the waves directly for her. She cringed. Her experiences on the sea thus far did not bode well for a rescue. In addition to the always dangerous qunari, Tevinter ships often plied these waters, and even the outwardly respectable captains explicitly trading in non-human goods were hardly above picking up a few slaves to line their pockets when the opportunity arose.

Four people were at oars while two others sat in the back, a short man at the rudder, whose stocky frame revealed him to actually be a dwarf - out here on the sea of all places - and an elf, a Dalish elf - if those markings on her face were not a figment of her imagination - openly staring back at her with eyes so wide she could see the green in them even at this distance. She held a tall staff in her small hands, twisted at the top like the roots of some ancient tree. A mage then.

That was a worrying sight, but the fact that the occupants weren't all human was at least a strike against them being from Tevinter.

Even more comforting was the fact that none of them had horns.

As they drew alongside, the crew lowered their oars and brought the craft to a stop just a few feet away. The dwarf smiled down at her from his perch on the stern thwart. "Ahoy, there." His gold necklace glittered in the sun and he had an easy smile on his face, like he'd launched this boat and had these sailors row all the way out here just for a chance to sell Hawke something. If so, she hoped it was fresh water. She'd give the shirt off her –

Oh, right.

"H – Hi," she croaked, her voice weak and cracking. Having an audience was doing little to reduce her shivering.

"And to think, humans say mermaids are a myth."

"A Dalish and a d-d-dwarf in a boat in the middle of the ocean," she stuttered through chattering teeth. "I must be seeing things."

A particularly steep wave took that moment to sweep through, dunking her head beneath the water and completely ruining her attempt at looking ambivalent about her current situation.

The dwarf continued to smile as she sputtered and coughed. "I take it you're not a mermaid then? The other half the crew has their money on siren."

She shook her head. "Afraid I can't sing a note."

"Well, that's a shame."

Great, here she was, slowly drowning in the middle of the ocean and she runs into the world's chattiest dwarf. "Indeed."

"So, you're just an ordinary human."

Hawke nodded, pouting as another wave splashed against her exposed chest. At least this dwarf wasn't the leering type, though the men and women at the oars certainly were. They wore no matching uniforms. Not navy then. Possibly merchants, if she was lucky, but when had she ever been that? "Alas, you've summed me up in one mere sentence."

"Marooned?"

"The qunari have no sense of humor."

He raised an eyebrow at the name. "Someone your age should've learned that lesson by now."

She crossed her arms more tightly over her chest but flashed him a smile as she cocked her head. "I could be a naïve young farmer's daughter for all you know."

The dwarf tilted his head in disbelief.

"Or not." Okay, sure, she had lived in a farmer's village, grown up alongside them, but the Hawkes had never really led that sort of life. They'd sort of just, well, faked it. She wasn't about to go back to Ferelden and start now, no matter how close she got to drowning.

Thankfully, the dwarf didn't appear interested in pushing for more information. "Captain's marooned her fair share of men here."

"Well, your captain sounds lovely."

"She doesn't appreciate it when other pirates use her favorite spot."

Hawke tried to sound as disinterested as possible, even as her legs threatened to buckle under the strain of fighting the waves all day. "I'm terribly sorry to have inconvenienced her like this."

The dwarf smiled. He glanced at his elven companion, who gave the tiniest shake of her head. Oddly, this reassured him. "Hop aboard."

She did so with a complete absence of grace or dignity, hauling herself up the rail before tumbling into the rear of the boat and receiving several splinters in her sunburned butt for her trouble. "Thanks," she mumbled at the wide-eyed stares she was getting.

"Not at all," the dwarf replied unfazed, nodding at the crew who firmly grasped their oars and took to rowing once more. "Varric Tethras," he added with a dip of his feathered hat before dropping down to his seat. "First-mate of the Siren's Call."

It was impossible not to feel the stares of the crew on her back, but they kept their mouths firmly shut as they went about their work, and Varric seemed to have an admirable control over them. Hah. Admirable. Admiral. She frowned as her eyes darted back to the underwater spit slowly disappearing into the distance, remembering the faces of four-dozen scowling qunari as she was dumped upon it that morning. Maybe she'd just keep that terrible joke to herself.

Meanwhile, the red-faced elf kept glancing at her and then looking away. Hawke had never seen a Dalish dressed in such a way before; from the heavy green scarf around her neck, to her billowy white shirt, her numerous rings and piercings of gold. She looked like a retired Antivan Crow who had long given up on being discreet.

Everything was right except for the eyes. Never in Hawke's travels had she met a pirate that seemed even remotely intimidated by her, yet here one was.

She was, in a word, adorable. Pretty too. Despite her slender frame, her arms betrayed the muscles of someone completely at home aboard a ship, hauling up lines, and climbing the rigging. Naturally, Hawke scooted closer. She didn't have an inkling of magical talent to speak of, but if she possessed any supernatural powers at all, it was her ability to make any awkward situation more awkward.

Also, her ability to flirt was known the world over, at least that's what her sister used to say.

Hawke shook her hair, but any enticing effect this might've normally had was somewhat offset by her chattering teeth and the way she continued to shiver.

"I'm Hawke," she began, extending her hand.

The elf took it like she had no idea what she was supposed to do with it.

"And what's your name?"

Her eyes met Hawke's for the barest instant. Endlessly green, she thought, like the Brecilian Forest on a dewy summer's morning. Beautiful, ancient, yet also not without an unnerving sense of danger. "Merrill." The accent was most certainly Dalish, Ferelden Dalish if she was any judge.

"Pleased to meet you." She shook Merrill's hand, but found herself startled by all the scars upon it. They ran all the way up to the sleeve of her shirt.

The uncertain look in Hawke's eyes didn't escape Varric's notice. "Merrill here is our resident blood mage. Is that going to be a problem?"

Hawke looked at the hand, then to the sea, then back at the hand. She shook her head, letting it go in what she hoped was as nonchalant a manner as possible. "Not at all." Running into a blood mage out here in the lawless seas surrounding Rivain wasn't too uncommon, not really, but few spoke so openly about blood magic. It was all making her a tiny bit nervous. Which, still, was preferable to drowning. She'd have to remember that.

Evidently satisfied she wasn't secretly a templar or something, Varric tossed her a heavy canteen which Hawke held in disbelief for a long moment before emptying in record time.

She practically purred in relief. Water had never tasted so good. Groaning happily, she allowed herself to stretch out along the bottom boards at Merrill and Varric's feet, much too exhausted to attempt the whole dignity thing. Doubtless, her mother would be ashamed. She often was. Merrill, face still redder than Hawke's burnt skin, kept her eyes firmly locked on the empty southern horizon while Varric maintained his ever present expression of amusement. "So, erm, what exactly is this ship you're taking me to?"

Varric nodded forward. "The Siren's Call. Three-masted frigate. Just your typical pirate ship."

Hawke rolled over to look, but all she could make out over the heads of the rowers were the tops of the masts, the black flag of piracy flying from the highest of them. "Oh, marvelous." At least the bodies of their enemies weren't hanging from the blood-dripping rigging or anything. Did they actually do that? She'd read about pirates doing that sort of thing in books.

"Rivani is a fair captain. Keeps a firm leash on her crew and has nothing to do with the slavers."

She let out a sigh of relief. The Arishok excepted, Hawke had been fortunate enough to avoid any of the more disreputable captains on her long voyages back and forth across the sea. When asked to choose between a slow death by drowning or doing even a fraction of the things going through the average pirate's mind when they looked at her, well, she'd choose drowning, thank you very much. "Is this a literal leash, or a figurative one?"

Varric laughed. "You'll do fine. Just don't give her a reason to kill you."

Hawke frowned. There was always a catch.

...

A long line of sailors were leaning over the rail, gawking as the little boat drew alongside. The crew itself was fairly ragged as far as their clothes and personal hygiene went, but the ship's red and black hull was as freshly painted as if it had just come off an Antivan drydock. Her prow was adorned with an exquisitely carved figurehead of a woman holding up a globe of Thedas with black lacquered continents and gold leaf seas. She clutched a flimsy piece of fabric to herself that only slightly covered her sizeable endowments.

She was also standing on a pile of skulls.

So, yeah. Pirate ship. Definitely.

Much to her chagrin, Hawke wasn't allowed so much as a blanket to cover her own body after she climbed aboard, still damp and sandy and shivering and occasionally sneezing. At a firm look from Varric, the gathered sailors stepped back and Hawke dutifully pressed herself back against the rail, pulling up some loose ropes to clumsily cover her lower half with. No sense in letting these horny sailors see everything.

Not without dinner first.

At least most of the horny sailors appeared to be women. That, she supposed, was a nice change of pace.

She guessed.

Still, she greeted them all with a winsome smile. Pirates were still pirates, and she had no desire to be fucked by them all, even if was just their eyes doing the fucking.

The following minutes went by slowly to say the least. As the ship creaked and moaned, the crew only murmured amongst themselves. More than once, Hawke opened her mouth to say something, but the slight shake of the head she got from Varric made her think twice about it.

She'd never been on a pirate ship before. The fact that the deck was as clean and organized as any she had ever stepped foot on came as a bit of a shock. No blood on the boards, no moaning captives chained to the capstans, no weapons being brandished at her.

It almost put her at ease, at least until a woman sauntered out of the rear cabin.

Hawke swallowed, feeling suddenly light-headed again. Okay, wow. So, pirates definitely weren't all bad. This one – well, this one… Wow.

Her heavy boots left her a good two inches taller than Hawke, and her dark hair and complexion suggested she was indeed native to Rivain as Varric's nickname suggested, that picturesque land of steep sunlit cliffs, endless steaming jungles, and sparkling seas. Despite the heat of the afternoon sun, she wore a thick blue naval coat adorned with gold buttons and epaulets over an open white shirt, all topped with large feathered hat.

There were a thousand things to capture one's attention, but when the captain's golden eyes were focused straight on her, it made Hawke want to drop to her knees and buy whatever this woman would sell her a hundred times over.

She was, in short, the most beautiful woman she had ever seen – and Hawke prided herself as an authority on the subject.

The captain stared at her expectantly. Swallowing, Hawke found herself unable to offer any loud, heartfelt declarations of love. Instead, she gawked dumbly before unconsciously letting the ropes drop from her hands. Again, everything went awkwardly silence for a long moment. The woman gave an approving smile. "You don't look much like a mermaid to me."

Hawke glanced down at her naked form, suddenly feeling a little inadequate in a lot of different ways. True. She couldn't even swim. "Did you, uh, want to take a closer look?"

The captain only continued to smile. "I think I've seen all I need to see."

Hawke tried not to take offense to that.

She leaned against the door jamb, mimicking Hawke's posture, nodding at one of the elves on the crew - another Dalish, if his intricate tattoos were anything to go by - who promptly tossed her an oversized shirt. "I'm the captain of this ship," she began, appreciatively watching Hawke struggle to slip it on. "The Scourge of Rialto. Terror of the Waking Sea, etcetera, etcetera… You may call me Isabela."

Head finally popping out of the neck hole, she grinned back at her. "Hawke," she replied simply. No fancy title to speak of.

Captain Isabela had a voice like honey – like the color of her eyes in the bright sun - a voice that no doubt charmed many people out of their possessions without her even needing to raise a sword. "So, Hawke, do you want to tell me what you were doing on my island?"

Leaning back against the rail, Hawke was pleased that the shirt at least covered her bottom sufficiently. "Just… erm… coming to terms with my mortality?"

Isabela stepped forward, arms clasped behind her back. "I see. And you got there, how?"

Hawke swallowed, still entranced by those bright eyes, "Thrown overboard."

She nodded, unsurprised by this. There were few other ways one ended up on a sandbar several hundred miles from the coast of Rivain. "By whom?"

"A qunari warship. Well, the first mate, specifically." She was quite a woman herself, tall, muscular, more physically imposing than any member of this ship's crew, but yeah, no sense of humor. A total deal-breaker as far as Hawke was concerned.

The being tossed overboard part had been just another strike against her, but, hey, they could've worked through that.

The sailors began whispering excitedly amongst themselves, but a pointed sigh from Isabela got them to quickly shut their mouths. Hawke found herself relaxing a little. This particular group of pirates at least respected – or feared – their captain.

She drew nearer until they were very close indeed. Isabela cupped Hawke's chin with the tips of her gloved fingers, turning her head to the left and then to the right as if inspecting plundered riches. That voice was even more alluring up close. "And what did you do - or say - that made the qunari throw you overboard?"

"Oh, you know… stuff," Hawke said softly under Isabela's piercing gaze. Apparently, antagonizing the captain and then killing him in a duel was frowned upon in qunari society, even if the first part had been entirely accidental, honestly. Well, mostly accidental. How he had discovered the secret she'd been carrying, Hawke would never know.

And perhaps the crew also didn't approve of the way she kept one of the ship's masts always been him and her until he let out a roar of frustration and swung so hard his sword got stuck in it.

Then she'd stabbed him in the back.

No points for style, but it had gotten the job done.

Hawke really hoped she wouldn't need to fight Isabela. She was much prettier than what's-his-face, for one thing. And even though she didn't carry a sword as tall as Hawke was, all those blades hanging from her person made Isabela appear twice as deadly as any qunari. Two daggers with blades longer than a human's forearm dangled from her belt, sharp edges glinting in the bright afternoon sun, and a short sword was slung over her back. Hawke had never been very proficient at dueling. It had merely been good fortune that her last opponent had been as slow as he was huge.

Isabela on the other hand looked as though she could kill someone five different ways before they hit the ground. Even through her light touch, Hawke could sense the power that lay beneath her skin.

Those strong fingers directed Hawke's gaze back to her honey eyes, fingers gently stroking her cheek. "Are you going to say anything to make mycrew throw you over?"

For the briefest moment, Hawke's attention wandered lower. Every inch of this woman was exquisite. Her neck, her collarbone, her – at a firm cough, Hawke's eyes snapped back up, lips breaking into a wide grin as a knowing smile spread across Isabela's face. If Bethany were here, her eyes probably would've rolled straight out of their sockets.

"She's not a mage?" Isabela asked, turning to Merrill. Again, the elf shook her head. "I suppose you can't do too much damage then." There was a light in her eyes that warned Hawke not to take that as a challenge.

She wasn't planning on it.

Finally, Isabela stepped back, leaving Hawke feeling in need of a cold drink, and a cold bath… a cold everything, really. "And where were you heading when the qunari got fed up with you?"

That was a piece of information she wasn't prepared to share just yet, certainly not in front of all these still leering men and women. "Kirkwall," she lied.

Isabela's eyes narrowed just a fraction, enough to suggest that she didn't believe her, but the rest of her demeanor remained unaffected as she turned away. "I'm afraid that's not where we're bound."

"Oh, I'll go wherever you're willing to take me."

Looking over her shoulder, eyes raked Hawke's body one last time. "I'll bet."

…

After a stop at the healer's to relieve her sunburn - and only afterwards, a dead crew-member's chest to pick up some better fitting clothes - Varric showed Hawke to what she assumed would be her cabin for the foreseeable future. Although, really, calling it a cabin was a bit generous: eight feet by six feet with a too-short bed, an empty sea chest, and not so much as a porthole to look out of. Still, she knew better than to complain. Most people found the sleeping accommodations on ships a surprise at first. Her family certainly had, many years ago when they'd crossed the sea to the Free Marches together. This ship was spacious by comparison.

It seemed that the crew of the Siren's Call followed the typical arrangement: a wide hallway, running from stem to stern through the berth deck, strewn with hammocks in which they all slept and lined with chests on which they sat when not otherwise engaged. Both men and women eyed her warily, or hungrily, it was hard to tell, but no one challenged her right to be there.

When you lacked confidence, fake it. That advice had gotten her this far. It was probably etched on the Hawke family crest somewhere. She'd have to ask Uncle Gamlen one day. He was the man who sold it.

As for the officers - or rather, the piratical equivalent of officers – their private cabins were clustered at the stern of the ship, the great room at the end serving as the officer's mess. Six cabins, one for Merrill and Varric, as well as four others whose names Hawke hadn't quite managed to learn yet.

It was in front of Merrill's door that she now lingered. It was marked, oddly enough, only with a crude drawing of a single flower. She tapped lightly.

Half a minute later, the door slid partly open and Hawke found those wide inquisitive eyes staring up at her, cheeks already turning red and she hadn't even opened her mouth yet. Start with something simple, she thought. "Hi."

Green eyes blinked at her. "Aneth ara."

Hawke smiled at the Dalish greeting. "You're not scared of me, are you?"

Merrill shook her head like someone who was trying exceedingly hard to be polite, yet who was also completely terrified. It was surreal. Mages were powerful, beyond powerful, and the last mage Hawke had gotten on the wrong side of had incinerated the building she'd been spending the night in - blasted it apart from foundation to ceiling. All she'd been able to do was run, wishing for the first time in her life that there was a templar nearby.

Preferably an army of them.

"Varric told me you'd missed dinner," she offered, holding up a small, steaming plate. "Hot biscuits, and, erm, I think it used to be a bird of some kind. Maybe."

Merrill's eyes darted to the offering and she licked her lips. After a long moment, she seemed to come to some sort of decision, nodded sharply, and slid the door open all the way.

Hawke nearly dropped the plate. The cabin was no bigger than her own, but in the space that would normally be occupied by a bed, there stood a large, fractured mirror rimmed with twisted wood, like the end of Merrill's staff, but golden. It was so tall it almost scraped the deck above. "Wow."

The door slid shut behind her, and the tilting plate taken from her grasp.

A mirror… only not really. Its supernaturally bright surface lit the room yet it reflected no light. She stepped close, waving a hand in front of it. Not even a ghost of a shadow. "This is a strange sort of mirror."

Merrill stood alongside her, gauging Hawke's reaction. "It's not a mirror. At least, I don't think it is. It's an eluvian."

No doubt Hawke's blank expression made it very clear that she had no idea what the word was supposed to mean.

What followed sounded like a speech Merrill had given countless times before. "Millennia ago, the elves had a kingdom, an empire that spanned all of Thedas, and every city had an eluvian. They allowed the elves communicate across their empire, though I don't know how exactly. So much has been lost…"

Hawke blinked. "So, it's magic?"

Merrill nodded.

Her hand went to touch the surface, and when Merrill made no move to stop her, she pressed a finger to it. Cold, like getting on the wrong side of one of her sister's frost spells. The air around her skin crackled with some kind of indescribable energy. Magic surely, but not being a mage herself, Hawke could say no more than that.

"I've spent the last few years restoring this. More than a decade ago, two of our hunters discovered it in a ruin beneath the Brecilian Forest. When we found them, one was lying on the floor, her skin turning black, and the other… Tamlen… we never found him, just his bow, lying on the ground next to a pile of shattered glass."

Hawke withdrew her hand. This close, she could make out tiny fractures in its surface. It would have taken even the finest glassmakers of Serault years to piece this back together so well.

"There was some sort of taint in the glass. It must've killed him."

Or, he got swallowed up in this thing, Hawke thought, eyes unwilling to look away.

But the mirror only stood there, like, well, a big spooky mirror that simply didn't feel like reflecting anything today, that's all. No worries.

Maybe it was just the frame. When her fingers brushed against that, it was clearly only wood, not magical at all, but the twisted form was more on the creepy side of beautiful than Hawke would've liked decorating the interior of her own quarters.

Merrill answered her unvoiced question. "Ironbark," she said, her tone almost reverent. "I had to build a new frame. The old one was made of stone. Tevinter, I think."

Hawke blinked. "Human? I thought you said –"

She frowned. "The eluvians were originally elvish, but so much has been lost since those days. More than a thousand years. After Arlathan fell, they took whatever they wanted, building their fortresses on the ruins of our cities, enslaving our people, and repurposing our magic for their own uses… most of it too horrible to contemplate."

Hawke nodded. The Dalish clung to their traditions and history like barnacles clinging to the rocks, yet they seldom discussed such things with humans.

It was an honor to be taken into their confidence like this.

Her thoughts soon turned sad. The Tevinter Empire had once spread across all of Thedas, amassing its wealth and power on the ruins of vanquished Arlathan. But even the memory of those days was practically forgotten; empires fell, books turned to ash, cities and once mighty fortresses became nothing more than stone skeletons, long since pilfered of anything of value. Yet, the elves were ancient when Tevinter was young… The task Merrill had before her was seemingly hopeless.

"If I can at least recover one small part of what we lost," Merrill added into the silence.

How many elves dedicated their lives like this, Hawke wondered. "So, this taint you mentioned wasn't part of the original mirror, I take it?"

Merrill shook her head. "It came later. Possibly even after the temple was abandoned. Some kind of darkspawn corruption."

Darkspawn. There was a topic she was all too familiar with. The Darkspawn were why her family no longer resided in Lothering. Or anyone else for that matter.

Merrill continued, talking about the ruin she'd found the mirror in, the books piled in the corner of this cabin that hinted at secrets she had yet to uncover, and all of her remaining nervousness melted away.

Hawke couldn't help but smile as she tried to follow along. She had always admired passion, even if it was for things she didn't truly understand.

It was a mission of hers, Hawke came to realize. Many in Merrill's former clan disapproved of her holding on to this part of their heritage, something that had killed one of their most beloved hunters, but disapproval turned to contempt when they discovered how she had removed the deadly taint from the glass.

Blood magic. Demons.

Even the elves of the deep forest shuddered to speak of such things. It was why Merrill was here, living a most un-Dalish life at sea, and not on dry land with the rest of her clan.

Still, Hawke's face betrayed no surprise when Merrill brought the subject up. Even if Varric hadn't been so blatant about it, the marks on her bare hands and arms made it all pretty obvious. She only replied with a distracted, "Oh, blood magic? Right on."

Remarkably, her forced ambivalence seemed to set Merrill at ease.

The lengths Merrill went to for her people's history didn't surprise her. She didn't need to ask what it was like to have it all only to lose it. There were only two facts one needed to know about the Hawke family line: one, there was mage blood in the family, and two: they used to be loaded… until Uncle Gamlen got a hold of the family fortune.

Now, not so much.

Still, one family's declining fortunes were hardly on the same scale as what had happened to the elves, she would readily admit.

Humans had all the power in Thedas. The elves... again, not so much. And whatever they tried to grasp was quickly taken from them.

A mail-shirt of dwarven make hung on a hook from the ceiling, the subtle outline of a tree on the breast created with the addition of green mithril rings. It made Hawke think back to the humans, elves, and dwarves she had seen working together on deck, hauling up lines, raising the sails, holystoning the deck planks.

At least on this ship, things were more equal. Race or sex did not seem to determine one's status out here on the waves. Thedas could really learn something from Isabela's crew of lawless pirates. How sad was that?

Eventually, the conversation turned to more mundane, non-blood magic related topics. Merrill and most of the elves on board had been together since Isabela fled Kirkwall some three years ago, right after the qunari attack that killed the Viscount and brought war between the city-states. She kept the ship's log, led the mages in the boarding parties, and was captain of the foc's'le. Whatever that hell that was.

"Raid many ships, do you?"

Merrill nodded. "We would hardly be pirates if we didn't. We strike mostly at the Orlesians, but the captain also likes to take on the slavers making the trip from Ferelden to Tevinter."

Hawke's fists clenched as she fought to suppress her anger at the very mention of the men enslaving her people. She'd seen it a hundred times herself. Even with the blight long over, her homeland would take generations to heal. A single poor harvest could still force thousands of starving refugees into ports all along the coast, making easy targets for the unscrupulous. "Is there much money in that?"

"The ships they sail on are usually worth something. We usually drop the prisoners off in Ostwick or Wycome."

The only two city-states still untouched by the war currently engulfing the Free Marches and threatening to spread across Thedas. "That's surprisingly… noble, of her."

Merrill nodded. "She's very kind, and beautiful. I don't know where I would be if wasn't for her… and Varric."

Clearly, there was another story there, but it felt distinctly as though she had pried enough into Merrill's past for one day, so she let it drop. "Kindand beautiful, huh?"

She blushed to the tips of her ears. Again.

Definitely something there too, but she decided to have mercy on the poor woman. If Merrill blushed any harder Hawke would be in great danger of needing to hug her, and then Merrill would probably explode into tiny little pieces.

"She thinks you're pretty."

So unexpected was the comment, Hawke could only gape at Merrill for a long moment. "I... uh... she told you that, did she?"

Merrill shook her head as she pretended to be fascinated by the book in her hand, or maybe she wasn't pretending, being surrounded by all these books and ancient artifacts left Hawke feeling decidedly out of her element. "You just… look like the kind of woman she sees ashore."

"I look like a prostitute?" she asked, her smile growing.

Merrill dropped the book straight on the floor, fixing Hawke with a look of horror. "Creators! I- I didn't mean that!"

Finally, Hawke couldn't stop herself from wrapping her arms around her. "It's all right Merrill," she said, laughing as she patted the smaller woman's back.

Thankfully, the slender woman didn't actually explode at all, in fact, she melted into the hug like it was just the one thing she'd been hoping for. "I just meant… you seem so strong, and confident. She likes that."

Hawke practically hummed as she pulled away. Merrill stood a little less stiffly now and no longer fidgeted with her hands, and with only a hint of red about the cheeks and ears. Progress. "So, is Isabela trustworthy, you think?"

"I trust her with my life."

No one would ever say it was easy for a human to earn the trust of an elf, let alone a Dalish elf. And yet Merrill was hardly the only one on board. And this thing - this eluvian - it was surely valuable, yet Merrill kept it here, with apparently no fears of anyone tampering with it.

"Is something wrong?" Merrill asked.

Hawke shook her head, more to clear her thoughts than anything else.

"She knows," Merrill continued. "Even the qunari don't leave people marooned on sandbanks without a reason." Strange how quickly she went to becoming the nervous one, while Merrill assumed the very picture of confidence. Hawke fingered the ends of her shirt. "She wouldn't rescue you just to double-cross you. I mean, unless you were a slaver, or you've stolen something of hers..."

"Can't say I've done either of those things," Hawke said with a shake of the head.

"Then you don't have anything to worry about."

"Because she thinks I'm pretty?"

Merrill only nodded. She didn't even blush this time.

Oh well, Hawke supposed that if Isabela did double-cross her, the result couldn't be any worse than the slow death by drowning that had been in store for her earlier in the day.

Maybe it was finally time to share her secret with someone. If so, who better to confide in than the commander of her own ship? Someone who might be able to help her find what she was seeking. Someone who could protect her from those who hunted her. But first, she would need to get in her good graces...

Hawke and Merrill chatted a little while longer, Hawke encouraging her to sit and finally begin picking at her food, even as Merrill became engrossed in a very thick book lying on the floor. When she was mostly finished, Merrill thanked her and Hawke took her leave.

Though she intended to mull her options over for another day or two, it wasn't long before Hawke's feet took her to the door to the captain's cabin. She'd never been very good at resisting temptation. Certainly not when the temptation took the form of a beautiful woman.

"Isabela?"

The door slid open and those piercing eyes raked her body up and down. Oops, how did those remaining buttons get undone? "Yes, sweet thing?"

Hawke quickly pushed her way into the cabin as she pulled her shirt off. "I have something very important I need to show you."

...

What she had intended to take only an hour or so to show Isabela, quickly stretched deep into the night, and after several hours of sleep, into the following morning.

Those books she'd read as a little girl hardly did justice to the reality of romancing an actual pirate queen. Probably because they skipped all the best parts.

As Hawke lay satisfied on top of her, Isabela was running a hand over her butt. "So… you do realize you have a gigantic map tattooed on your ass, right?"

Hawke looked over her shoulder, feigning shock. Somehow, Isabela didn't find that half as amusing as she did. "Yeah," she mumbled into the silence, resting her head back on Isabela's wonderfully soft breasts. "I noticed that too."

With surprising ease, Isabela unceremoniously dumped Hawke to the side and mounted her thighs to get a closer look. "Detail like this takes some real dedication, and some serious coin. Or a long succession of drunken nights, and some serious coin."

She let Isabela run her curious fingers along her curves. It wasn't like those fingers weren't similarly engaged in the dark of the previous night. She sighed. Isabela was a pirate, and pirates by definition were the scum of the earth, or the waves, as the case may be, but she was tired of carrying this burden by herself, hiding from her friends and family to keep them from getting dragged into what had turned out to be a very dangerous and financially ruinous adventure. Her solitary efforts were getting her nowhere. Maybe Isabela would learn all she needed to learn, then kill her on the spot, or maybe she'd maroon her again. At least Hawke would die in a state of sexual satisfaction. "Well," she began, swallowing. "A demon sort of did it."

Isabela instantly retracted her hands. "A demon?"

Hawke nodded, finding herself a little saddened by the way Isabela recoiled. There were many people in Thedas who would kill someone for simply being touched by a demon, consensual or not. "A demon," she repeated. "A desire demon." Though, to be fair, she hadn't known that at the time.

"Really?"

"Really."

"A desire demon tattooed a map on your ass?"

It did sound rather silly to hear it said out loud, yes. "Well… um… essentially."

"With magic?"

She grimaced. It was hard to talk with the side of her face buried in a pillow. "Hopefully? I can't really say. I was unconscious when it happened."

"Drunk?"

A shrug. "At first, maybe. But later on, I discovered that I'd lost a few days."

"Magic then."

"So it would seem."

Isabela let out a breath, she turned over Hawke's hands as if checking demonic sigils or something. "Usually, once a demon gets its claws into you, escape is impossible." Then she placed a finger on Hawke's cheek, as she looked deeply into her eye. She would find no demonic glow in them. Hawke had already received assurances from the most respected healers in Ostwick and Kirkwall that she was not in fact possessed. Unless, maybe, they were demons too. Darktown had been pretty creepy.

"Perhaps I wasn't worth possessing?"

"A blow to the ego, I'm sure," Isabela smiled.

"It truly was," Hawke replied, throat going dry under Isabela's gaze. "You're really pretty, did you know that?"

She smiled. "Thanks. I like your eyes," she said, outlining one with the tip of a finger. "I think I'd like to carve them out and stick them in a jar."

Hawke swallowed. "Uh…"

"Don't worry," Isabela giggled. "I'm not the dread pirate Corypheus. I only let people think I do such things. It's good for business."

"Nice to know."

Again, with wonderful strength, Isabela rolled Hawke over and settled back on top of her. The sight of this feared pirate captain all naked, hair disheveled, and very much on top of her, was enough to make one tingly in all sorts of places. "So… do you always let demons share your bed?"

"You mean, apart from last night?" The light from the windows glinted on Isabela's teeth when she smiled at that. If there was any demon in this room, surely it was her. "Well," Hawke coughed, "she didn't take the form of a demon to start with."

"They seldom do - unless you're into that sort of thing. So, what form did she take?"

"Well…" She shook her head, eyes fixed on the tall windows that ran from floor to ceiling at the stern of the ship, showing the morning sun just rising above the waves, and finally let out a deep breath. "You're going to laugh at me."

"Wouldn't be the first time."

She sighed again. It wouldn't even be the first time in the last thirty minutes. Apparently, she was doomed to be absolutely hilarious, even during the act of lovemaking. "She, uh…" At Isabela's look of growing impatience Hawke finally just spit it out, "She looked kind of like the Hero of Ferelden." Exactly like, actually, from the little chip missing from her left ear, to the famous scar running across her pretty elven face, taken when the archdemon Urthemiel spit its liquid fire at her from the top of Fort Drakon.

Isabela laughed so hard Hawke half expected the crew to come bursting through the door to see what was the matter. "Oh, Maker!" she cried, grasping her stomach, "You thought you were sleeping with the Hero of Ferelden?"

Another sigh.

"That is too good."

"Like you wouldn't do the same!"

Isabela didn't even flinch at the accusation. "Been there. Done that."

It took a moment for Hawke's brain to fully register the import of what she was saying. "You… wait, what?"

"Many years ago. I met her just before the Battle of Denerim."

Hawke's fell back to the bed, allowing the sinfully soft pillows to swallow her up.

"Well," Isabela continued. "If it helps, I am not a desire demon. Or any sort of demon, no matter what anyone else might tell you."

"I should've just asked her that. So, I know you say you're Lyna Mahariel, but are you actually a desire demon in disguise? C'mon. Be honest. I promise I won't tell nobody."

Isabela laughed again. If laughter was the basis for an enduring relationship, then Hawke felt she might as well just propose right now. "So, tell me…" she asked, "how did you realize the truth?"

"That final night, when I woke up, she was all horny." At her raised eyebrow, Hawke quickly added, "I mean, with horns growing out of her head? Like a qunari, but, purple."

"Ah. That's usually a giveaway."

"I thought so," Hawke said with a nod.

"And then what happened?"

Hawke's brow creased as she struggled to find just the right phrasing. "Well, um, I laid there for a long while with her arms wrapped around me, strongly considering freaking right out, you know, like you do? But she didn't make a move to devour my soul, or anything of the kind, she just sorta smiled at me." Kind of exactly the same way Isabela was smiling at her right now, actually. "So, I just calmly got up and mumbled something about needing to use the bathroom. She looked like she didn't want to let me go, but I somehow managed to convince her."

"You charmed your way out of her bed?"

"I suppose you could put it that way."

"Or," Isabela drawled. "You told a lot of bad jokes and she kicked you out?"

She huffed. "You sound like my sister."

"So, what happened next?"

"Well, just as I was contemplating sneaking out through the third story window, there came a great crash from the other room, a lot of shouting in some language I'd never heard before, then this big old ugly guy with a sword broke down the door and tried to kill me."

"This a regular occurrence for you?"

She shrugged. Kinda. "I think he was a demon too. He had this glowy magic surrounding him. Then he shot a ball of green stuff at me."

Isabela made a face at Hawke's lackluster descriptive powers. "Green stuff?"

"I don't know what it was. I've never seen magic like that before. It gave me this scar along my shoulder," she added, rubbing the shiny skin a little sadly. It continued well down to the small of her back. No healer seemed able to cure it.

"Poor thing," Isabela said, leaning down to kiss her there. "So two demons are looking for you?"

Hawke nodded.

"Would've been nice had you mentioned that sooner."

She snorted. What a wonderful first impression that would've made. Hawke pictured herself climbing up on board the Siren's Call, only to get tossed off it thirty seconds later. "I'm not as dumb as I look."

Isabela ruffled her hair, like Hawke was twelve and not in her thirties. "That remains to be seen. You are as adorable as you look, at least."

She rolled her eyes.

"Fortunately, I have a habit of –" Isabela waggled her eyebrows, "getting my hands on things that net me quite a bit of trouble. As long as you make yourself useful around the ship, I don't mind protecting that fabulous rear of yours." The look in her eyes made it clear she wasn't talking about manning the bilge pumps, thank the Maker.

Smiling up at Isabela, Hawke purred and stretched her limbs, watching with pleasure as hungry eyes raked every inch of her naked body. Hawke knew that look. It was the I'm-thinking-about-last-night-and-would-be-rather-interested-in-repeating-the-experience-soon-if-you-wouldn't-mind-too-terribly-much look. It was a very good look on Isabela. "Thanks," she replied.

Finally, Isabela began closing the distance between their lips again. "Remember what I said: as long as you make yourself useful."

Hawke nodded, allowing her eyes to drift shut. "I'm versatile."

"And flexible," Isabela breathed.

She felt the woman's warm breath against her skin. "Aww, you noticed?" Isabela hummed, but Hawke waited a moment, then two moments, then three, before opening her eyes. Isabela had pulled back, her eyes wide. "What?"

Her companion suddenly sat up on the bed. "We need to show Merrill your ass!"

Heart suddenly racing, Hawke looked over at the door, half expecting to see Merrill standing there, staring at them both with horror etched on her face, presumably one second from fainting dead away, but the door was still locked tight. Isabela was off her in a flash. "Merrill?" she squeaked, reaching for her pants. "But she's…"

"Adorable, I know, but not nearly as innocent as she appears."

Hawke tightened her belt. "Because of the blood magic?"

"Well, partly." Strange how the blood magic aspect didn't seem to disturb Isabela at all. This really was an odd sort of ship. It would've been one thing if everyone on board was a mage, but that wasn't the case either. Neither the captain, nor her crew, seemed to care about such things. "Actually, I just meant that I've seen her drunk more times than I can count, and sometimes she joins me on my trips to the brothel when we're at port."

"Oh." Now there was a mental image Hawke was having great difficulty forming. "Is she the navigator or something?" Hawke didn't really relish the idea of draping herself over a table while Isabela and Merrill tried to plot a course using her butt as a navigational aide.

"Huh?" Isabela shook her head. "No, I just mean those words on your butt are in elvish. She could probably translate them."

"Oh…. yes, right. You, uh, think she'll mind?"

"Seeing your ass? I doubt it. She does seem rather smitten with you."

"Oh." Yes. She had noticed that. Smitten or terrified. One of the two, surely.

"And…" Isabela added, eyes flashing, "if you hurt her in any way, I'll throw you overboard. After I carve out those pretty eyes of yours, of course."

Hawke swallowed. "Of course."

…

Again, Merrill was completely red faced. How this woman ever accompanied anyone to any sort of brothel was definitely completely beyond Hawke's imagining.

"See?" Isabela was saying.

Merrill nodded. "It's a map."

"Indeed."

"Well, I'm glad we've got that sorted," Hawke grumbled.

Both women ignored her. "Something about the coast of that land looks vaguely familiar," Isabela continued.

Merrill hummed, tossing the magnifying glass back on the table. "The text is Elvish, for sure, but it's too small to read."

Hawke sighed. Under normal circumstances, she would have only positive things to say about the prospect of two beautiful women admiring her ass in a locked bedroom, but the reality of the situation was leaving her cold. Literally as well as figuratively. "Can't you just trace it onto a piece of paper or something? This position isn't very comfortable."

"It's a bit too detailed for that," Isabela replied. "Unless you want to be lying there for the next ten hours. Or I can bring Lia in here. She's the ship's chartmaker, and probably wouldn't mind looking at your ass either."

Eyes still curious, Merrill placed her finger on Hawke's skin for a second, then seemed to notice what she had done and swiftly retracted her hand.

"It's all right, Kitten."

Kitten. Very appropriate, Hawke thought. Still blushing, Merrill tilted her head as she stared, leaving Hawke with little to do but sit there and admire the elf's striking face, curious eyes, and the way Isabela kept brushing the hair out of them for her.

Then, as if suddenly coming to some sort of unvoiced conclusion, Merrill nodded sharply.

The question never had a chance to leave Hawke's lips, she was too busy recoiling at the sight of Merrill unsheathing the long knife hanging from her belt. "Uh, wha –"

With her free hand, Merrill pressed her back down with more strength than the slender woman should've possessed. Hawke was hardly frightened of blood, but when Merrill sliced the palm of her own hand clean open, she tightly shut her eyes.

The wrongness of that was quickly overpowered by the rush of magic. Her ass grew warmer and warmer – again, not as pleasurable as it sounded – then a rush of magic suffused her entire body before vanishing in an instant.

A new light had her hesitantly opening her eyes.

And there it was; the map, etched large upon the wall, and glowing with its own faint yellow light.

She looked over her shoulder. Unfortunately, the original map was still where it had been for the past few weeks. Hawke sighed. She preferred her butt the way it was.

The two women were already stepping around the bed to get a closer look while Hawke took one look at the blood still dripping from Merrill's hand and grabbed a discarded shirt off the floor. With speed born of long experience, she ripped a piece of the flimsy material into a long strip. "Here," she said, scooting forward and grasping Merrill's hand. "Warn a girl before you do that next time." When she turned Merrill's hand over and wiped her palm, she was surprised to find nothing more than a faint white scar.

"It usually heals pretty quickly," Merrill said, her cheeks flushed.

"Oh,"

Isabela leaned over and ruffled her hair again.

Sighing, Hawke pulled a bedsheet to her, wrapping it tight around her upper body as she slumped on the mattress.

She had never gotten a very good view of what was tattooed on her butt, no matter how many mirrors she'd collected for the purpose. She couldn't read the strange script, didn't recognize the landforms, and trying to figure out just how many mirrors she needed in order to see a non-reversed image gave her a headache before she even got started.

The map was actually two maps; one panel for each… well… one panel for each. On the left was the coast of a continent, or country, or something bordering a large body of water at any rate. The right panel depicted an island crisscrossed with rivers and mountains, an improbably large lake in the center of it, all surrounded by a thousand spires of rock jutting out of an ocean filled with horned fish and other more fantastical creatures of the sea.

Calling it inhospitable would've been charitable.

"Thedas," Isabela said, pointing at the left map.

Hawke blinked. To her eye, it looked more like the Maker's unfinished plans for Thedas, but now that it had been pointed out, she did recognize the east coast of Ferelden and the curving sickle shape of Rivain, but if that was supposed to be Seheron at the top, then the map-maker should've checked their sources better. It was firmly attached to the mainland in two places, leaving the Nocen Sea as a giant lake.

But the biggest departure from reality was the complete lack of any Waking Sea. There was nothing to keep a person from walking a straight line from Denerim to Kirkwall, should they have wished to.

Though neither Denerim nor Kirkwall appeared to be on this map either.

"Elvhenan," Merrill corrected, her voice betraying a deep sense of awe. "This is the world before the great Elvhen Empire fell."

Isabela's eyes widened. "How can you be sure? I was thinking it must be a very old Tevinter map."

Merrill shook her head, pointing to the shores of the Nocen Sea. "None of these places have human names. And look, no Minrathous, no Vyrantium. Even the most ancient Tevinter cities aren't here."

"So, is this what Thedas, erm, Elvhenan, used to look like?" Isabela asked, "Or is it just one of those old maps that only collectors find interesting. Remember that one we lifted from that merchantman a few months ago, where Ferelden was drawn as an island, and Seheron was spelled with an F?"

She seemed to consider this. "That was very valuable, wasn't it? But I don't think so. See these mountain ranges?" She pointed to each one as she listed them off. "There's the Hunterhorns, and Gamordan, and there's the Frostbacks. All perfectly in place."

Hawke titled her head. That was strange. The seas were definitely wrong, but the mountains corresponded exactly to what she knew of modern Thedas. Old maps, like the kind Isabela was thinking of, tended to be inaccurate in every way, warping seas and mountain ranges in all sorts of fantastical directions. But here, the ranges were charted as precisely as any Dwarven cartographer could ever wish for. "So, where's the Waking Sea then?"

Merrill frowned. "When the humans came, they used their magic to force the ground to swallow up Arlathan and many of the other great Elvhen cities. Many elves fled, but some tried to use their magic to hold the invaders off. Great battles took place all over Elvhenan. Mountains rose, and entire lands fell into the sea..."

"The magisters did this, or was it the elves?"

She shook her head. "So much is lost."

"I'd hate to run into the kind of magic that could carve a thousand-mile long sea into a continent like that," Isabela said.

Even Merrill seemed to agree on that point.

The mood in the room had turned entirely too gloomy. "What about the other map," Hawke asked, nodding at the improbable looking island on the right. "I suppose it's important somehow?"

Isabela was counting the numbers marked along its left-hand side, written in Elvish just like everything else, "Forty-five, fifty…"

"Oh, well done," Merrill said with a smile.

"I had a good teacher," Isabela winked. "Hmm. Judging by these latitude marks, it's somewhere in the Sundered Sea." She ran a finger across the map of Elvhenan. "Riiiight about… here," she said, pointing to a small dot hidden in a vast ocean at the bottom left corner.

Merrill's eyes grew wide, but Hawke only blinked at the name.

"The Southern Ocean?" Isabela asked, eyes narrowing. "The Sundered Sea, south of Ferelden and Orlais? You know, the one with all the ice in it?"

Hawke continued to stare blankly at her. Geography lessons at the Lothering schoolhouse never really extended much beyond Orlais: bad, Ferelden: good, and there's some mountains in between. She'd picked up a few things in her travels since, but she wasn't exactly an expert on the subject. "Oh. Um, is that bad?"

The look on Isabela's face conveyed an answer something along the lines of 'what are you, the world's biggest idiot?' Thankfully, her mouth was kinder, "Only fools sail so far south. Many rulers have sent expeditions that way, looking for a fabled passage to the west and its riches, as well as to avoid the qunari and the slavers…" she crossed her arms, "but there's nothing out there except endless plains of ice, barren rock, and the eternal peace of a watery grave."

"How do you explain the little palm trees then?"

"Huh?"

Scooting to the edge of the bed, Hawke pointed to the island. In addition to the little bumps indicating mountains, there was also the occasional tree and waterfall. None of it looked frozen, in fact, it looked positively tropical, like the rain-soaked northern shores of Rivain and its thick, lush forests.

Isabela regarded it dubiously. "Artistic license… or more accurately, a lack of artistic imagination. Most mapmakers never leave their homes. To an Orlesian, every land from Ferelden to Seheron must look exactly like Orlais. They couldn't imagine how it could be otherwise."

"Oh."

"You know, we might have to bring Lia in here after all. Trace this to something a little more portable than the wall of my cabin, or your butt." Isabela smiled appreciatively as Hawke laughed.

"Hey, my butt's portable. I take it everywhere!"

Isabela shook her head, even as she laughed. Then she blinked as a thought came to her, "Was your father a mage by any chance?"

Surprised by the question, Hawke looked up from where her eyes had wandered onto Isabela's breasts, even mostly covered as they were. "Uh… actually, yeah, he was."

She nodded. "When demons mark people like this… Well, they tend to prefer people who already have some magic in them."

Hawke slumped. Her sister was a mage too. Hawke and her late brother Carver had been lucky in that respect. "So she chose me for my blood, not my charming personality?" She canted her head out of the way before Isabela could ruffle her hair again. "This thing must be important though, right? Why else would a demon go through all the trouble of tattooing it on my butt?"

Isabela shook her head, like there was a joke to be made there but she just couldn't think of one on the spot. Meanwhile, Merrill's mind appeared to be racing with the possibilities. An unexplored island detailed on an ancient Elvish map...

"You know," Hawke drawled, smirking at the preemptive roll of the eyes she was getting from Isabela, "If it truly is a map to an ancient Elvhen bastion of some kind, it could contain untold riches." Hawke hardly needed to sell it any harder than that. Merrill was fixing Isabela with a wide-eyed, hopeful look that would've worn down the defenses of a qunari, even that big beefy one Hawke had stabbed in the back two days ago.

Shutting her eyes as she shook her head, the smile on her lips gave the distinct indication that this wasn't the first time Isabela had fallen victim to Merrill's pleading looks. "It will take us a week just to reach Estwatch. Another two to make it to Gwaren, if the winds are favorable. And another two to wait for the people there to stop laughing at us when they find out where we're going."

"It will be fun though, right?" Merrill, asked rising from the bed and practically bouncing from excitement. And really, who could resist that face?

Not Isabela apparently. "Fine… fine. I'll put it to the crew, see what they think. Okay?"

Merrill quickly nodded, breaking out in a wide smile.

"Balls," she muttered to herself as she wandered over to the window. The sun was much higher now. Bright and warm without a cloud in the sky. "We'd need cold-weather gear, and supplies for months..."

"You think they'll go for it?" Hawke asked.

Isabela shrugged. "We have a fair number of elves among the crew, and Varric is always up for an adventure. Gives him something to spin tales about. Besides…" she let out a deep breath, "All these qunari ships sailing so far south of Par Vollen isn't a good sign. It might be a good idea to leave Rivain for a few months."

"Are they planning to invade?"

She made a vague gesture with her hands. "The qunari are notoriously difficult to predict, but they do seem agitated. Well, more agitated than usual... Almost like they're desperately searching for something very important to them."

Hawke frowned, only slightly relieved it wasn't for her. The qunari already had her in their grasp once, had already seen what was tattooed on her, erm, more sensitive bits – despite her protests – and yet they'd still let her go. It was actually a little insulting, to be honest.

Only a little though.

"Well," Isabela drawled as she stretched her arms. "The crew should've eaten by now. No better time to ask them." Crossing to the door, she glanced over her shoulder. "You'd better come too, Merrill." She paused. "Merrill?"

Merrill remained where she was, staring at Hawke again, more openly than ever before. Hawke leaned back on her elbows, waggling her eyebrows. She probably could've put a shirt on at some point. Ah, well...

Isabela snorted at them both. "Hawke?"

"Hmm?" The expression on Isabela's face was half amusement, half warning.

A pair of black trousers landed on her head. "Put your pants on."

* * *

End of Chapter 1

* * *

AN - Anyone unfortunate enough to intently follow my multi-chapter fics knows that I take forever to update. Real life, sickness, writer's block… all that stuff, you know? So, I really can't say when the next chapter will be up.


	2. Chapter 2

_Any Port in a Storm_ by Imrryr

Chapter 2

...

"Below 40 degrees south there is no law.

Below 50 degrees south there is no God."

\- Whalers' proverb.

…

The romance of the sea. She'd always loved those stories; the one's that told of pirates, and treasure, salt breezes, and the clash of blades. A hundred colorful characters, a thousand varied lands. Desert islands and sapphire blue oceans, men-of-war and ships of the line. When one saw nothing but sheep, and the same fenced-in properties and perfectly maintained gardens everyday of your life, when everyone you met lived their entire lives in one spot, and expected their children to do the same, perhaps it wasn't unusual to feel the pull of a different life. Something grander, more varied, more exciting.

Her hands gripped the rail tightly as the Siren's Call took another heavy wave, rising up until there was nothing to see but sky, then falling, which was the part she admittedly never watched, preferring instead to shut her eyes, grit her teeth, and pray to the Maker that they rose again.

A few feet away, Varric's grip on the ship's wheel remained unbreakable.

Exciting. Yes. Very.

When the ship next lurched to starboard it nearly tossed her over the side. Her heart pounded in her ears.

"You all right, Hawke?" Isabela practically shouted the question. It was the only way to be heard over the screaming wind, the crashing waves, and the groaning timbers.

And the cold cut through her heavy layers like a jagged knife.

"I'm great," she gritted out, eyes fixed on the rail, teeth chattering under the rain and spray, soaked hair sticking to her face. "It's great. It's all great. Everything's great."

Seemingly incapable of losing her balance, Isabela wrapped a strong arm around Hawke's shoulder, lips close to her ears. Despite it all, the silky tone of her voice made Hawke shiver in a way that had nothing to do with the cold. "You can still go below. The crew won't think any less of you."

Hawke managed a half-smile that ended up a grimace as the ship lurched hard to the opposite side this time, but she kept her eyes on the rail. Movement was bad. All movement was bad. "Only if you join me." It honestly wouldn't help that much, but she had always found breasts to be very distracting.

"Sadly, duty calls," she said with a light pat to her back. And with that, Hawke was left to fend for herself, watching sadly as Isabela joined Varric at the wheel and lightning struck the sea less than a hundred feet away. Then she shut her eyes again.

They'd made commendable progress since loading the ship in Denerim. Gwaren had been left far behind some three weeks ago, and already they were further south than any store-bought map of Thedas could ever guide them; south of the Brecilian Forest, south of the Arbor Wilds, until finally the land began curving inexorably to the west and the sea became littered with a maze of islands. Day after day, they passed through endless channels, watching as thick, dark forests gave way to shrubs, and shrubs gave way to Maker-forsaken windswept lands where the tallest plants came in the form of moss and lichens.

And just like the land, day after day the air and the sea grew steadily less inviting.

The only positive was that the nonstop storms kept the crew busy, even if it didn't keep some of them from giving her the stink-eye when Isabela wasn't looking.

Hawke didn't completely blame them. She knew how it must look: formerly marooned naked girl with a dubious past seduces the captain and uses her wiles to send them all sailing into waters no sane person would ever venture into. A pirate captain's career ended when they no longer brought in the booty. Isabela's fitness for her position was very much at stake here.

As for herself, if this ancient elvhen island didn't materialize, Hawke was sure she'd wind up on another sand bar, fantastic sex and hilarious stock of jokes be damned.

She opened her eyes again when she heard one of the top most sails on the mainmast begin to tear. Immediately, Isabela called up to the men and women handling the mainsail. She had no trouble making her voice heard over the gale, "Strike the topgallants!"

In an instant, the crew were clambering up the ratlines, making their way up the masts.

Hawke had little idea of what was going on. There was a lot of shouting from the mast, crewmen pulling on ropes – sorry, _lines_ – and an inescapable sense of impending doom, but maybe that was just her. Hawke's eyes remained glued to Isabela, watching as her long coat whipped in the driving rain, cold spray ran down her face, and powerful legs kept her firmly rooted to the deck.

"Oh, Maker," Hawke muttered to herself. She had it bad.

And Merrill could sometimes be seen through the spray, between the sails of the mainmast, barking her own orders at the crew, grasping the lines and maintaining her balance with ease as the ship rose and fell, and the upper sails were slowly lowered. With her lithe frame, she had no trouble at all. Hawke was having a hard enough time holding on the rail.

She wondered if Isabela hired her crew based on looks as well as ability.

Well, probably not, since Martin was admittedly pretty darn ugly.

With less canvas against the screaming wind, the groaning of the masts eased a bit and Hawke mumbled a prayer to the Maker, a prayer that run something along the lines of, ' _Hey, Maker. Thanks for not killing us… I mean, not that you would, because you abandoned us and all, but, uh, I guess what I mean to say is, thanks for doing nothing. Appreciate it. Love, Hawke_.'

" _Captain!_ "

Hawke turned to see Isabela running to the bow where Lia stood watch with her ornate golden spyglass. "I saw something, dead astern. Just for a second."

Isabela took up the instrument, but with all the spray, and the closeness of the trailing clouds, it was a wonder they could see fifty feet behind them. "Gonna need more to go on that that, Lia. Was it a berg?"

They hadn't passed close to any icebergs yet, but they were getting more frequent the further along they went. Giant shards of densely packed ice, which, as one of the older members of the crew assured her, could easily strip the plates right off the hull. With this visibility, it was a real concern.

"No," Lia said firmly. "It was a ship… just a dark silhouette… but I'm sure it was a ship."

The captain shook her head. "Blast it."

Despite her roiling stomach, Hawke called out, "What is it?"

Isabela beckoned her over, and Hawke let go of the rail, stumbling in their general direction before crashing into them both as the ship rose on another prodigious wave. "Sorry!"

Grumbling, Lia thrust the spyglass into her hand. "Tell me what you see!" Isabela yelled as she tried to steady her, pressing Hawke against the thick, wooden outer rail, the flame of the nearby mounted torch a little too close for comfort.

It took a moment before she could see anything at all. The rain was so heavy, it felt like she was drowning every time she opened her mouth, but then, bursting through the mist came the silhouette of a ship, dark as the night sky, but no figment of her imagination. "Andraste's flaming ass…" In another second, the mists obscured it again.

Out of the corner of Hawke's eye, it was clear by her expression that Isabela saw it too.

"My thoughts exactly," Lia muttered.

"Who are they?" Hawke asked. It was much too dark to make out any details, but the prow and sails appeared as decidedly ominous dark voids against the fog. When lightning flashed for a second she saw it again, even without the telescope. It was a ship.

There was no doubt.

"No idea," Isabela replied, as serious as Hawke had ever seen her. "But I'll wager they're not here to ask for directions."

Lia grimaced, as if anticipating something explosive.

She got it.

Isabela glared up at the men and women on the rigging with fire in her eyes. "I will _kill_ whoever blabbed about our destination!" Her voice cut through the air so effectively that the entire deck must have heard her. Some of the crew noticeably shuddered. "Merrill, Varric, Martin!" Dimly, from high on the mast, Hawke caught a glimpse distant green eyes flash through the spray, peering directly at them, seeming to shine green like a cat's under the glow of the magical torches lighting the deck. "Warps and hawsers to the mastheads!"

Martin called up from his station, "Captain?"

Planting her hands on the rail overlooking the lower deck, Isabela stopped him with a look that, well, to be honest, if it were directed at Hawke, would've just set her underclothes on fire. All it did to Martin was make him swallow, give a sharp nod, and turn to address his men. "You heard the captain, get moving!"

Hawke grabbed her hand. "Isabela! What's going on?"

After that display, Isabela was surprisingly gentle with her, pulling Hawke close as the ship rode down another gut-wrenching wave. "We either fight them, or we outrun them. Since I doubt there's anything on that ship as valuable as what we're seeking, that means we run and hope to lose them in the storm."

"Oh." Hawke opened her mouth to say more – like 'what's a hawser?', 'what's a mast-head?', and 'are we all going to die?' - but Isabela was already striding down the stairway, barking more orders at the crew. Still peering through her spyglass, Lia remained at the stern, and after a few minutes of standing there in the heavy spray, Hawke joined her to watch their pursuer. There was little else for her to do.

High above them, the crew were hauling lines up the masts. It was all quite inexplicable to her, but it looked as though they were using those ropes to support the tremendous pressure the wind was putting on the spars. None of that seemed to bode well for the state of the ship, but, then again, what did she know?

Maybe everything was actually going perfectly alright.

Yeah, she was going to go with that hypothesis.

"And someone strike those lamps!"

One of the mages hurried by and did just that, dousing them with a wave of magic and leaving her and Lia in the dark.

It was impossible to tell if the ship was moving any faster once the spars were secured and the upper sails unfurled again, though the moaning of the ship did seem to get worse. With Lia, she kept a silent vigil at the stern, kneeling on the deck as Lia watched through the glass and their pursuer appeared again but always soon disappeared back into the mists. All the adrenaline was enough to keep her from remembering how sick she should be feeling.

It felt strange though, that they were running like this. Pirates _never_ ran in books.

Not that she relished the idea of fighting whoever was on that ship while being tossed about by the wind and waves. Hawke had fought alongside her brother with the army at Ostagar, and had more run-ins with bandits than she could possibly hope to count, but with the way the ship was lurching, she was more likely to trip and fall off the deck before an enemy boarding party had even managed to launch their grappling hooks. No one but a mage or a qunari could possibly fight in these conditions, and the prospect of that ship being crewed by either was almost as upsetting as the state of the sea itself.

Lia kept a sharp eye through the glass. She was a city elf, very young, maybe sixteen or so, though still a full member of the crew. According to Isabela, she was a savant when it came to celestial navigation, which might've explained why she had been a bit frosty with Hawke lately. They hadn't caught so much as a glimpse of a star in over a week. Their exact position on the map was mostly guesswork at this point. "You didn't recognize the ship trailing us?" she asked suddenly.

Grimacing, Hawke shook her head.

"I hope it's not Corypheus."

The fact that Lia wasn't about to berate her for getting them into this predicament eased the weight on her chest. "Who _is_ Corypheus, exactly?" She'd heard of him, of course - everyone had _heard_ of him - but then everyone had heard of the archdemon Uthemriel too, and stories of the great dragon's size and ferocity and evil deeds had long ago grown all out of proportion to the real thing.

"No one's ever seen him," Lia replied. "They say he never leaves his ship. But his ship is a terrifying enough presence on its own. Black tattered sails, a black hull of rotted planks. And his crew are ashen, as though they've never seen the sun. When they come to a port, they take what they want and leave. Just supplies though. Rum, and bread. Never gold, or jewelry, or anything a pirate might be expected to take."

"You're making them sound like the darkspawn..."

Lia smiled. "Wouldn't that be something, darkspawn pirates? But no, it's strange, they're human, at least on the outside, and I've never seen them kill someone unless they got in their way."

"So, you've seen his crew?"

Lia nodded. "Corypheus sailed into Kirkwall once. Killed most of the Arishok's men after the qunari took the city a few years back, but he didn't do it to liberate us. His crew went from house to house, turning us all out on the streets, but in the end, they left only with food and rum."

"They forced you into the streets?"

"The smart ones didn't bother to ask why. As long as we did what they demanded, they scarcely even looked at us."

"But surely they were after something?"

Lia shrugged. They both huddled closer to the extinguished torch. Despite being out, its magical warmth soaked into the rail and the planks, refusing to dissipate. "Rumors abounded, of course, but I don't know the truth any more than anyone else does. The Alienage was hit the hardest. They tore it apart looking for… whatever it was they were looking for, but that's nothing new." She noticed Hawke's uncomprehending look. "It's rare when an alienage goes more than a few years without a riot; bread shortages, maybe a nobleman misplaced a ring and thought one of his servants stole it. Maker help us if an elven mage ever escaped the gallows…"

Hawke could only nod her head. The implications were easy enough to imagine.

Lia continued, "Then they left, just as quickly as they arrived. In the end, they took nothing from the Alienage except what was in our pantries."

"What happened after that?"

"My father and I escaped to the docks. That's where we saw his ship." Her expression became grave. "It looks like it shouldn't float at all. The sails were ratty, the deck planks rotted. It looked like an ancient wreck some demon lifted from the bottom of the sea. I heard that the Tevinters used to sail ships like that over a thousand years ago, when they controlled the whole world. You'd think that would make it any easy target, that it would be slow… unwieldy like a river barge. But no. It's as fast and maneuverable as a clipper, and as well armed as a dreadnought. Anyone who Corypheus sets his eye on is doomed." The howling gale and the dark skies above seemed to add extra menace to her words. "Or, that's what they say."

"Right," Hawke said finally. "Let's hope it's not him then."

The winds continued to scream, the seas continued to roll, but the mists and clouds began a slow retreat as the ship pressed on. Both women kept their eyes behind them. Sometimes they thought they had captured a glimpse of their pursuer, but it always turned out to be a trick of the light; a wave, a solitary berg, or simply a low-hanging cloud.

Dull, but no sighting was better than the alternative, and at least Lia was good company.

After an hour or two had passed, they both failed to notice Isabela suddenly hovering over them. "Mind if I borrow that?" she asked, indicating the spyglass. Lia handed it over, but neither she nor Hawke expected Isabela to aim it starboard instead of aft. Hawke caught a glint of something on the western horizon. For a second she thought it must be an island, but there were no signs of waves breaking against its shores. Balls. Their pursuers were back, maybe a mile or two away, it was hard to tell with nothing but waves to measure against. "How do you _do_ that?"

Isabela only shrugged. She turned briefly to Lia, "Don't feel too bad. No one else on this ship has spotted them yet either, and some of these men have been at sea since before I was born."

Raising the glass again she hummed in thought, or to annoy Hawke with anticipation. The way she was smiling pointed to the latter. "Okay," she began. "The good news is it's not Corypheus, or any pirate I'm familiar with."

Hawke let out a long thankful sigh. "And the bad news?"

"It's a galley."

Leaning forward, Hawke squinted at the distant ship. Hints of sails were about all she could be sure of seeing. Two, possibly three masts, but dark as the void. "We're being chased by a kitchen?"

It took a long moment before Isabela realized that she wasn't being serious. "Maker, your jokes are _terrible_."

Hawke grinned up at her. "I try."

"I wonder sometimes. But _anyway_ ," she continued pointedly as she handed the glass back to Lia, "Only two navies still sail galleys. The Tevinters, and…"

"The qunari." And now Isabela and Lia were looking at her like she'd brought doom upon them all. "Uh oh."

"Yes. It would appear that your friends are back," she said, eyes narrowed.

A qunari dreadnought, and Hawke had led them here. She'd need to tread carefully. "Well, uh," she winced, "any friends of mine are friends of yours."

Isabela's expression turned as frosty as the wind filling the sails. Hawke, even still bundled up in a thick coat as she was, found it did little to lessen her sudden fit of shivering.

Oops.

"Are you sure it's a galley?" Lia asked, oblivious to the change in mood. "In these seas? How would they manage to keep water from pouring in through the oar piercings?"

All of that earned only a shrug from Isabela. "Well, it's rigged like one at any rate," she replied, still glaring daggers at Hawke.

Granted, Isabela _had_ promised to protect Hawke from the one, or possibly two, demons chasing after her, but a qunari dreadnought was another matter entirely. It outclassed the Siren's Call in every way, with its larger crew, its dreaded gatlock cannons, and its faster speed. Even with as many mages as this ship had, their odds in a fight would be, at best, fifty-fifty.

Even if they won, casualties would be high.

That would make her unpopular.

And, well, casualties would be high. She didn't want anyone here to die on her account.

A stiff wind continued to blow, but the skies were now only threatening rain instead of dumping it rudely on their heads. Hawke was pretty sure it must be late afternoon, but for how long the storm had been raging, it could've been early morning next Thursday for all she knew.

Varric had joined them at the rail. "If that's a dreadnought, I'd say they'll reach us by nightfall," he said. "Lucky the weather is so rough. It'll keep them from firing their guns."

"Would they fight us in the dark, you think?" another one of the crew asked, an older man with a long, nasty scar across his neck, that was Martin, captain of the mainsail. He still wasn't exactly easy on the eyes. He was good at shouting though, which seemed to be an important skill to have on a boat… er, ship.

Isabela nodded. She motioned to Lia to pass the glass back to Hawke. "Notice anything familiar?"

Hawke squinted through the eyepiece. Now the skies were darkening for a different reason, still, even with the twilight it was a lot easier to make out fine details with the Siren's Call no longer rocking as bad, and the wind not blowing as much spray across the surface of the sea. The ship was dark, with a distinctively angular silhouette, not graceful like Isabela's ship. The sails were arrayed differently, shaped like triangles instead of squares. She said none of this out loud. It would only make her appear like more of an outsider than she already felt. "If it _is_ the same ship that captured me, I don't understand why they would come back."

"Yes," Isabela replied, expression softening a bit. "It does seem rather silly to capture something, throw it away, then come back to retrieve it."

"Don't pirates do that when they bury their treasure?"

She scoffed. "I wish you had a copy of one of those pirate books of yours so I could whack you upside the head with it. Not too hard, of course," she added with a not particularly comforting smile.

"Perhaps they're new to the whole piracy thing?" Hawke offered.

"I've met qunari pirates before. They're usually quick to figure out the basics of the craft."

"Well," Hawke began, "I don't think the ones who captured me were pirates anyway. They didn't really act all that pirate-y, minus the whole throwing me overboard thing." Granted, Isabela's crew didn't act like the pirates she'd read about in books either, so what did she know? "I think they were soldiers, or sailors, or whatever."

"Either of those two options are best to be avoided," Isabela frowned. She let out a breath as she rested her arms against the rail. "Not like we're going to have much of a choice in the matter, it seems."

"So, the qunari gave no reason why they captured you in the first place?" Martin asked. Varric smiled to himself. He already knew all the details, but most of the crew didn't - probably because it was a little hard to romanticize running for your life, sneaking onto a ship, subsisting on scraps from the kitchen, and sleeping inside a cable locker fouled with the smell of years of accumulated mud from half the harbors in Par Vollen.

Though, Hawke was sure Varric would think of a way to properly embellish it, given enough time.

"Oh, they had a perfectly valid reason. I was a stowaway." All part of her not-so-well-thought-out plan to escape the demon guy with the glowy hands: stow away on the nearest ship. "I needed to leave Llomerryn, so I found a ship to hide on. And," she drawled. "It turned out to be qunari dreadnought," she added with a shrug.

Martin blinked. He was probably thinking the same thing everyone else did when they heard this story. With their black hulls and black oars, a deck lined with red torches, and a crew of seven-foot tall grey-skinned men with horns, it was hard to mistake a dreadnought for anything else. Certainly no one would ever be dumb enough to use one as a place of refuge.

But then there was Hawke.

"When they found me a few days later, the captain forced me into his cabin, stripped me down, looked at my butt and made a sort of dissatisfied grunting noise."

"Huh," Martin said. "Doesn't sound like typical qunari behavior to me."

"Maybe he was more of a leg person," Isabela suggested, earning a chuckle from the assembled crew, which now included Merrill who was staring at the silhouette in the distance with wide eyes.

"The captain also had one of those other qunari with him, yunno, the really creepy ones with their lips all sewn together."

Merrill noticeably paled. "That was one of their mages. They're rarely seen in Thedas. They usually keep them chained and locked away."

"It's probably too much of a coincidence when a demon tattoos a map to your butt, and a few weeks later a qunari captain strips you down just to get a look at it," Isabela added.

She sighed. This much was true. "Still doesn't explain why they let me go."

"Indeed." Isabela's brow furrowed. In the weeks since Hawke had been rescued, no one had managed to come up with an acceptable explanation for that yet.

Hawke took up the spyglass again. "Um, I can't see any oars."

She was surprised when no one said anything. Lowering the glass, Hawke found everyone staring at Isabela.

"If they aren't using their oars, how are they keeping pace with us?" Lia asked.

She shook her head. Isabela appeared as confused as any of them. Not a good sign. When it doubt, assume sorcery, she thought. Hawke scanned the deck once more. The seas were still choppy, and it took some time to be sure that what she was seeing were in fact people and not the various bits of equipment that adorned the deck of any ship. "It's weird. I only see two out there." She would've expected a lot more. The dreadnought she'd be on had a crew of at least a hundred, and she had never seen the deck below with all the rowers on it. The weather deck should be swarming with qunari, especially if the men below weren't busy propelling the ship.

"You can see them?" Isabela asked, evidently surprised.

"Mmm hmm." A brief flash of lightning from overhead illuminated the scene a little better, but she still saw only two, unless the rest were hiding and, yeah, that seemed unlikely.

"Wow. You must have eyes like a…" She stopped when Hawke's lips broke into a smile. Grinning herself, rolled her eyes, "like some nonspecific type of bird, at any rate."

She laughed and passed the spyglass back. Isabela's smile steadied her nerves better than any tonic Hawke had ever tasted.

A crew member called from the crow's nest. "Ice field, dead ahead, Captain!"

Now longer scattered with bergs, the way south was a field of snow and ice under the clearing sky, with narrow leads running into it. To the east lay a windswept island, brown cliffs betraying the fact that this was solid land. To the north was open sea, and the way home, and to the west…

Well, they were not going that way.

"This might be the dumbest thing I've ever done." She slowly turned her gaze to Hawke. "Second dumbest."

Hawke looked away and huffed.

"Take us in, Varric."

Varric didn't try to hide the face he was making, but it was less a what-the-hell-are-we-doing kind of face and more of a resigned oh-well-i-guess-we're-all-going-to-die-but-hey-what-can-ya-do kind of face.

Hawke grasped the sleeve of Isabela's coat before she could leave again. Already, the crew were pushing their way past to get to their stations. "Isabela. What are you doing?"

She looked up, reading something in the sails and the tension in the rigging that Hawke couldn't begin to decipher. "We can't push the ship any harder. The only chance we have is to lose them in the ice field."

Right. Lose them in a possibly endless field of ice. "How hard is it to lose a qunari dreadnought?"

Varric and Isabela shared a long look.

The unvoiced answer was evidently 'very.'

Merrill had the ship's mages huddled around her, but with the wind Hawke couldn't catch what they were saying. She kept by the ship's wheel, content to listen to Varric's reassurances as they drifted gently to port and passed the first of many bergs standing sentinel around this endless mass of ice.

"See the ones in the blue fringed robes?" Varric asked after a time.

Hawke nodded. He was speaking of the mages now lining the front of the vessel and looking calmly over the rolling sea.

"They're elementalists. Weavers of fire, lightning, and most importantly for us: ice. They can sense it. Or, at least, we hope they can."

"I suppose you've never tried this before?"

Varric smiled. "Not much ice around Rivain. But we've used mages to search for fires below decks, and to locate springs on deserted islands before. Same principal."

She watched as one of the mages called out a low-lying berg and Varric dutifully turned the wheel, the crew adjusting the sails as though of one mind. Behind them, the dreadnought was slowing, but had turned to follow. It seemed strange that even with the danger the qunari would be so hesitant. They weren't the mindless brutes the Chantry liked to paint them as, but when they had a goal they would stop at nothing to achieve it.

Still, if their pursuers decided to turn around, Hawke was definitely _not_ going to complain.

As the afternoon wore on and the sun disappeared, the ice floes grew larger and more numerous until they were sailing in what was essentially a channel. The sight of high walls of ice on either side was nerve-wracking, but always there was a channel of deep blue ahead of them, a reassuring trail continuing all the way to the horizon. The rocking of the ship lessened, helped both by the calming weather, and the necessity of slowing down to avoid the smaller bergs floating loose in the channel.

If the qunari were doing the same thing, or if they had actually given up, Hawke had no way of knowing. They had long since disappeared behind the walls of ice.

Yep. Everything was going well, right up to the point when one of the lookouts shouted, the ship struck something, lurched hard to starboard, and Hawke toppled over the side and into the sea.

…

When her eyes opened again, she found herself on her back, sprawled on Isabela's soft mattress and practically buried under a mountain of blankets. The ship wasn't rocking anymore, so that was an improvement, and she wasn't underwater which was even better.

Slowly sitting up, Hawke grimaced as the room spun for a moment. Well, hopefully it was the room. Wait. Wasn't she supposed to be dead?

The door cracked open, green eyes peering in on her, "Oh, you're conscious. That's good."

The fact that Merrill was dressed in a soft white robe instead of the dark heavy coat she typically wore out on deck made the question of Hawke's aliveness more difficult to answer. With a faint smile, she gently touched her forehead. Oww. Yeah, she was definitely alive.

Merrill entered, holding a vial of a familiar looking red liquid. Sadly, it wasn't wine. "This will help."

The foul concoction made every muscle in her body tingle, but the pain vanished as quickly as she gulped it down. "Thanks."

Slender fingers guided Hawke's head this way and that. "Looks like you're all better then."

She nodded, though they evidently had differing definitions of 'all better'. "Do you know any spirit magic?"

Merrill shook her head. "It was mostly Anerin who patched you up. You hit the side of the ship when you fell overboard. Everyone was very impressed that you didn't split your head right open."

Hawke blinked. Finally, she had managed to do something to impress the crew. Gingerly, she swung her legs over the side of the bed, then firmly placed her hands on the edge of the mattress to steady herself. "I've always had a thick skull," she mumbled.

Lips twitched in response, and Hawke beamed. Three weeks and this might've been the first time she'd made Merrill laugh, or at least, come close to laughing. "How did I get out of the water?"

"We stopped the ship and pulled you out."

"Oh." Wow. That was quite a risk to take on her behalf. Maybe the qunari really had given up? "Well, I, uh, appreciate it."

Merrill sat on the far edge of the bed and nodded.

"Can I ask you something?"

She inclined her head again.

"When we saw that ship, why did we run? Not that I'm not glad we ran, or anything, it just seems a little out of character for a ship of pirates, you know?"

The nice thing about Merrill was that there were no dumb questions as far as she was concerned. No subtle roll of the eyes, nor a frown like she was thinking, 'oh maker, not this idiot again.' A refreshing change when it seemed like every question Hawke asked was a dumb one. "A good crew is hard to find. Isabela wouldn't put us at risk unless there was something to be gained from it. Qunari gatlock cannons are very valuable, of course, but not worth the lives of a good crew."

"Oh."

Merrill smiled at her. "You say that a lot."

"That's because I'm completely at sea here." Hawke smiled at her own pun, but Merrill just looked at her in confusion. That happened a lot too. "I, uh, just mean, I feel kind of useless." Which was probably because you _are_ kind of useless here, she reminded herself. Everyone on a ship had a purpose. There were sailors, cooks, healers, and so on. Thus far, Hawke's purpose had been mostly confined to warming Isabela's bed, keeping Merrill company, and listening to Varric's stories.

Not all at the same time… well, except for that one night.

Over on the wall in front of them, the magic of Merrill's projection spell had long faded, but the outline of Hawke's map had been carefully traced with ink. Lia was still in the final stages of copying the entire thing to parchment. Unfortunately, smooth seas had been in short supply lately. So, instead, every day, Merrill came into the captain's cabin to study the map of the island in detail, trying to learn what secrets it might hold.

Hawke wasn't much help with that either.

Now standing, Merrill scratched her head as her other hand held a magical flame to better illuminate the wall.

"What's wrong?" Hawke asked. She didn't know anything about ancient Elvhen writing, but sometimes it helped to talk things out. And the other nice thing about Merrill, aside from just generally being very cute, was that she was never impatient. She took the time to try to explain things in a way that Hawke could understand. Granted, it didn't always work, but the effort was appreciated.

It made her wonder if Merrill treated the entire crew this way, or if Hawke was flattering herself to think that she was a special case.

"For the longest time I thought my translations were off," Merrill said finally.

All over the map were various bits of text, none of which Hawke could even begin to decipher. "I thought elves all spoke a common language?"

Merrill looked over her shoulder and smiled. "There are clans in the Anderfels that would probably disagree with you, but yes, we do... only, the language we all speak dates back only to the time of the Dales. The original language, the ancient language, that was lost under the Tevinters. To find any written record from the time of Arlathan, a scrap of paper, scribbles on a potshard… that would be worth a thousand times its weight in gold to us."

Turning back to the map, she continued, "Every decade, during the arlathven, we meet and trade our relics with the other clans, but we know some of them are holding relics they don't wish to share. Last time, there was even a fistfight between two of our most respected scholars."

Hawke's lip quirked. The mental image of two elderly men fighting over some fragment of ancient lore was an amusing one, she had to admit.

She pointed to land of Ferelden. "These place names I couldn't translate, but that's not surprising. They might be older than the elves themselves. It's like Ferelden… that name used to mean something specific, a fertile valley, but today it's just a name. No one thinks about fertile valleys when they say it."

They probably think of dogs, poor sanitation, and unseasoned food, Hawke mused.

She was startled when Merrill brought out a knife. "I'd like to redo the spell. I think I've come up with a way to make it permanent," she said. Merrill shook her head when Hawke slowly reached for the fabric belt of the soft robe she'd awoken in. "It's okay. You don't actually have to be naked for this."

That was a relief. Even inside the ship, with all the magical torches and braziers still lit, the air was much too cold. It seemed to seep in through the ice-covered windows. Outside, the sky was as dark as it had been when she fell into the sea, but she honestly had no idea if it was day or night out there. Not after the week she'd had.

With slightly off-putting efficiency, Merrill cut her hand and worked her magic. In the past month, it was only the second time Merrill had used blood magic in her presence. At least she wasn't making a habit of it.

This time, Hawke watched as a wave of bright light engulfed her, then shot into the wall with all the speed of an arrow. Just as before, the map glowed. Only…

"The words… they're different."

Hawke had to stand up to look closer, shivering in her robe. Merrill was right. The script illustrating the lands no longer matched what had been copied to the wall. "What's it say now?"

Merrill frowned. "It's still gibberish… just, different gibberish."

Ok. Not good.

"Maybe it's a code, or a cypher…" she continued, clearly thinking out loud.

Hawke nodded, to be reassuring if nothing else.

"Oh, creators."

"Hmm?"

"Look." Merrill pointed to the bottom of the left map, the one depicting all of Thedas. The island to the right stayed exactly the same, but the cross marking its spot in the great southern ocean had moved from the bottom left of the map to the right. A distance of hundreds, if not thousands, of miles.

They were sailing in the wrong direction.

Well, _shit_.

Hawke stiffened. "We, uh, should… maybe tell Isabela." We should definitely tell Isabela. Like right now. Then she imagined what Isabela's reaction might be. Actually, maybe she should jump overboard and save herself the whole awkward being-shoved-over-the-side-of-the-ship thing. Clearly, she was capable of handling that.

Merrill grabbed her hand before Hawke could run out the door. "I need to look at the original map."

She stood there dumbly for a moment before understanding what exactly it was that Merrill was asking for. "Oh, uh, right," Hawke started, grabbing the end of her belt. At least she was right about one thing, this wasn't any less awkward the second time.

Just as the robe fell to the floor, the door slid open and Isabela strode in, making it several steps before coming to a sudden halt, leaving all three women staring at each other for the longest five seconds of Hawke's life.

"It's not what it looks like," she blurted out.

Isabela crossed her arms. "So, you're _not_ showing Merrill the original map, you just wanted to present your nude body for inspection?"

Hawke deflated. "Correction: it's exactly what it looks like."

"Well, put it away. We've got a problem."

"Yes," Merrill added, drawing herself up. "We do."

Isabela opened her mouth, then noticed the glowing map on the wall. Just as with Merrill, the same exact same succession of confusion, followed by realization, followed by shock, showed on her face. The x so carefully traced by Lia's hand was no longer in the same place. The magical outline had changed. "Shit."

Shit indeed.

"What happened?"

Merrill shook her head. Unceremoniously, she tugged Hawke to her and pointed at the tiny scrawl on her butt. She explained how the untranslatable text had changed, then pointed to the more pressing matter. "All the x's are close, but not exactly the same as what is tattooed on Hawke. Oh, and it's missing this one island here."

Hawke let out a long breath when she felt the light press of a finger against her skin. "That's a birthmark."

"Oh." Merrill quickly removed her hand. "Right. Still. Hawke's tattoo puts the island within seven-hundred miles of both the old projected map, and the new one."

Isabela took little notice of them, still staring intently at the maps on the wall. "I don't know what your definition of 'close' is, but seven-hundred miles is a lot of room for error, Kitten."

"There must be more to the spell that I'm missing. There must be a key to uncovering the real map."

"You're telling me that Hawke's map is wrong too?"

"Probably," she said with a nod. "I think it's designed to throw people off the track. Only someone who knows the correct spell could learn where the island is truly located. I know I can uncover it," she added, "but it'll take time."

"Merrill. If the crew finds out we don't know where we're going…"

She needn't say more. The longer they stayed here the worse it would be for Isabela when the crew found out the truth. Without knowing where they were going, finding the right island in this vast ocean would be impossible. If it even existed. And how could they be sure of that now?

Merrill didn't seem to be as concerned as she ought to be. "It's funny, demons don't usually bother with maps."

Hawke took Merrill's leaving as a cue to gather her robe up and pull it back on. The mood in the cabin was strange. If she were a sea-captain she'd probably be freaking out right about now, but Isabela seemed to take some comfort in Merrill's lack of concern.

There was a lot Hawke didn't know about their history together. Perhaps Isabela was confident Merrill would come up with a solution. If so, hopefully she did it in a hurry. Even if they never learned about any of this, any major change in course would be difficult to explain to the crew.

"You said we had bigger problems?" Hawke reminded.

Isabela's lips curled into a slight smile. "Not bigger, as it turns out, just more immediate. That galley has, not too surprisingly, refused to give up the chase."

Hawke was reminded of being stripped before the captain of the qunari vessel. "What if they know what we just learned here? What if they _are_ after me?"

"That would seem to be extremely likely."

She let out a long breath. "Balls."

Suddenly, the entire cabin was awash in red light, which shocked Hawke so completely she fell backwards onto the bed. Every torch in the cabin was burning high, supernaturally so. "I suppose that's not the everything's-okay-no-need-to-panic alarm?"

Isabela slowly shook her head, but it wasn't to say no. "Feel free to stay below decks," she said as she strode out the door. "Forever, if you like."

…

"Still gaining, Captain."

Despite Isabela's parting words, Hawke followed her back onto the deck with Merrill at her side, dressed once again for the harsh weather. She wasn't about to let Isabela and her crew fight the qunari alone.

Once in the cool night air, it was clear that the Siren's Call had been maneuvered into a dead end, a bay surrounded nearly completed by vertical cliffs of ice. A familiar ominous black presence blocked the only way out.

Good work, Hawke thought. You've condemned over a hundred souls to a watery grave.

And it was highly unlikely Isabela would ever be kissing her again.

"Can't say this was worth the trip," Martin muttered.

"What are you talking about?" Isabela asked, voice dripping with sarcasm. "Look at all this _vast_ plunder to be had." Looking pointedly at Hawke, she held out her hand and gestured at the walls of ice surrounding them.

Hawke pouted at her.

Isabela's lips quirked ever so slightly in response.

"Varric?"

The dwarf held up his hands. "It looked like the way was clear, then suddenly the ice closed in around us." He pounded his fists together for dramatic effect.

The nods of the nearby deck hands corroborated his story.

"So, now what?" Martin asked. "We make a run for it?"

' _Run where?_ ' Hawke thought.

"Might be able to slip by them," Isabela agreed. "But if that prow strikes us even a glancing blow, we're done for."

Hawke had to interject at this point. "But, you're pirates right? Can't you just… you know, do what pirates do best?"

Isabela patted her on the head, again like Hawke was twelve and not thirty-four. "I don't know what you've read in those books of yours, but _real_ pirates like us, we prey on the weak." Some decidedly offended coughs and mutterings broke out from all around them before a pointed glare had the crew returning intently to their work. She snorted. "So, no, I'm sorry, but no self-respecting pirate would tangle with a qunari dreadnought, not without an armada behind them."

She got the sense that Isabela was speaking from experience.

"Doesn't look like we have a choice though," the captain added with a sigh. Then she regarded Lia, still at her station at the bow. "What do you see?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

She shook her head. "Nothing."

"What does she mean, nothing?" Martin asked.

Isabela took up the glass herself. "Andraste's ass…"

"What?"

"Nothing. There's no one on that deck."

Martin was visibly shaking. "A ghost ship," he said in hushed tones. "Maker save us all."

Whisperings broke out amongst the crew.

"A ghost ship? _Seriously?_ " Isabela cried. Again the crew returned to their work.

"Might be a trap," Varric offered.

"Do qunari even know how to lay traps?" Hawke asked. Subtlety was not exactly an art the qunari were known for. Just ask Kirkwall.

"I guess we'll have to find out."

…

If her stomach still hadn't learned to fully appreciate life on the ocean waves aboard a large ship, it really didn't appreciate being back on a tiny boat, one which Varric and the crew for some reason called a jolly boat, which she was pretty sure was a misnomer.

Hawke clutched a donated broadsword close to her chest as the crew rowed and Varric sat beside her, manning the tiller and going over the plan of attack for a second time.

Merrill wasn't with them, she was captaining one of the other boats, and Isabela was in the largest of the them, leading their little fleet.

Everyone was on edge. Varric told her that usually by this point the target ship would either begin retreating, or have to start defending itself with arrows or magic. Certainly, no one was expecting a qunari vessel to just keep sit there like a floating rock after pursuing them for what must have been thousands of miles. Even their trading ships would put up a hell of a fight. Yet, this one remained where it had stopped, right at the head of a narrow ice-lined channel. The dreadnought left about a frigate's length of space on either side.

"So," Hawke asked, teeth chattering. "Is this normal? Taking to the small boats like this?"

"What? You want us to ram her instead?"

Hawke looked at the enormous prow of the ship they were approaching. Ice hung from its jagged edges, lending the whole scene a little extra menace. Her eyes darted to Varric's and she quickly shook her head.

"We can't risk the ship, not when we're this far from friendly seas." He gestured to the boats on his right with his free hand. "So, we're going to encircle them. If they fire a shot, the mages on the boats that aren't instantly obliterated will light up their entire gun deck."

How comforting. "Is this experience talking?"

Varric laughed. "Nope."

…

Engaging the dreadnought turned out to be exceedingly anti-climatic. There was no epic battle, no sweeping waves of fire, no rain of arrows blotting out the light of the moon reflecting off the canyon of ice - not that she was complaining, mind you. Hawke couldn't handle a bow, and she wasn't a mage, all of which made her superfluous for the purposes of a ranged attack. They wouldn't even let her row the boat.

The ship remained silent as they circled it before drawing closer. Hawke had the best eyes, but even she couldn't see a single sign of life aboard that vessel. No movement, no torches, nothing.

She did at least prove useful when it came to climbing the prow - Hawke was the first one to stick her head over the side and peer onto the deck. Her face not being instantly turned into a pin-cushion was apparently the universal all-clear signal.

The high deck lay silent except for a light breeze pulling at the tattered sails and the sea lapping against the barnacled deck. Dried blood covered the parts that weren't blanketed under ice and snow, leaving just the masts, lines, and the ship's wheel sticking out. It was an unsettling sight. Even in the foulest of weather, Isabela was a stickler for order. Ice would never be allowed to build up like this on the Siren's Call. Hawke actually had to admit, this did feel like being on the deck of a ghost ship. Martin deserved credit on that one.

It was impossible to tell if this was the same ship she'd been thrown off of weeks ago. It looked more or less the same, she supposed, but she hadn't exactly been paying close attention on her last visit. Isabela, now on deck and looking resplendent in her polished chainmail, blue cloak, and shining daggers, gave her a look that said, ' _Well?_ '

Hawke shrugged.

Unimpressed, Isabela nodded towards the rear of the deck where a large qunari-sized door, barred with a thick plank of wood, provided access to the cabin and lower decks. Hawke didn't have a chance to move before a dozen of the crew approached the door, two of the strongest looking on either side. With another nod, they had the plank up, and tossed it to the side.

They pulled open the door to reveal a solitary, unarmed qunari.

"Don't move or I'll kill her." That voice didn't come from the qunari, it came from directly behind Hawke. Before she could react, a strong arm was wrapped around her chest and a sharp blade was scraping at her throat.

Everyone froze. The first crew member Hawke made eye contact with was Martin, who promptly turned to Isabela and shrugged. Asshole.

Hawke put up her hands. Out of the corner of her eye she caught the faint swish of the end of a thin, dark tail. Well, that explained why she recognized the voice. It was the demon Hawke had accidentally shared a bed with. Meanwhile, the qunari just stood there in the doorway. She too was a familiar sight. Hawke would recognize those muscles anywhere. They had been used to good effect when she tossed Hawke off her ship several weeks ago. "Um… okay," Hawke began. "Can we not?"

She struggled to figure a way out of this. Her methods of persuasion were limited to charm, and sarcasm. Neither seemed likely to work in this situation.

Just as she opened her mouth, a flash of light blinded her. The arm around her back was gone and at the same time she heard a loud thump, a hand yanked her away. Placing a hand in front of her eyes and removing it did nothing to return her sight. Thundering loud footsteps advanced on her, which immediately ceased at what sounded distinctly like a magic spell. Whew. Sometimes it was good to have an army of mages on your side.

Pity she couldn't see what had happened.

"May I?" the demon asked.

There was no response, but evidently it was a yes, because one moment Hawke was blind, and the next she was seeing perfectly.

The demon was sitting on the deck in front of her, purple, with long horns like a ram, just as Hawke remembered, and someone who, judging by the complete lack of clothes, didn't feel the cold at all. This was the first time Hawke had really gotten a close look at her face. Beautiful, but of course she would be.

Merrill and her mages had encircled her, and Isabela stood at Hawke's right, meeting her eyes with a look of concern. "I'm fine," she mouthed.

Isabela nodded, giving her a playful bump of the shoulder.

The demon placed her hands behind her back and smiled up at Hawke. "We meet again, Marian."

No one else made a sound. Isabela blinked, looking around for a moment before nudging Hawke's shoulder again. "Who's Marian?"

Hawke let out a deep breath and shut her eyes for a moment. " _I'm_ Marian. What, did you think I only had one name?"

Isabela shrugged, but there was amusement in her eyes. "What's _my_ full name?"

Her brow furrowed. "Uh…"

Several of the crew grumbled when the qunari woman stepped forward. The one that grabbed her arm was immediately sent flying.

"Stop!" the demon cried.

Hawke assumed that those words were directed at Isabela's crew, but it was the qunari who obeyed. Two burly seamen immediately grabbed her arms and hauled her into the circle of mages. The qunari didn't put up the slightest bit of resistance even as one of the men forced her to her knees. It was impressive how little she seemed to care. Once the unnaturally glowing eyes of the demon's met hers, the qunari's eyes remained fixed upon her, like she was the most precious thing in all the world.

She was obviously enthralled. Hawke had seen it before in her travels.

No one else in the crew had said anything yet, so Hawke cleared her throat. As expected, the qunari didn't notice, or care, but the demon smiled up at her again. A dark bruise was forming on the side of her head, someone must've clocked her good while Hawke was blinded. "If you wanted to kill me, you could have gotten your qunari friend to do it."

"Her name is _Adaar_ , and I would not endanger her in such a way."

"Ansala," the qunari said breathlessly, with eyes only for the demon. The look on her face was one of utter devotion. Hawke hoped she didn't make that face when she was looking at Isabela… or Merrill.

She rubbed under her chin, fingers coming away with a few tiny smears of blood from the cuts the demon had left. Oww.

The demon pouted at her. She rose slowly and Isabela immediately stepped forward, raising a blade to her neck faster than Hawke could blink. The demon lifted her hands. "I assure you, your mages could kill me before I could harm a hair on your pet's head."

Isabela and Merrill shared another look, and reluctantly Isabela lowered her sword.

"I have a name, you know?" Hawke muttered. _Pet_ indeed.

"Indeed, Marian," she said. The name made her cringe. Only Bethany and her mom called her that. The demon's eyes flashed brighter for a second and the pain in Hawke's neck vanished. When it was clear that no one was going to stop her, the demon paced around Hawke, changing form as she circled her, hands clasped behind her back; Lyna Mahariel, the qunari woman who tossed her overboard – Adaar, apparently -, Merrill, before finally settling on the form of Isabela. All of them naked, of course.

Hawke shook her head, trying to banish the images from her mind. "Please stop doing that, it's very confusing."

With a smile, her form altered back into the Hero of Ferelden. "Better?"

"Marginally." At least now she wasn't naked. This was Lyna Mahariel as Hawke remembered her, in her full, shining warden armor, just as she appeared in the tavern in Llomerryn. Scarred from her years fighting the darkspawn, and grinning at Hawke like she was the most amazing woman in the world.

That's the look that started this whole adventure. Hawke could never resist a powerful woman. She never even tried.

If her companions saw all these transformations, they didn't say anything.

"They see what they want to see," the demon said, as if reading her mind, and maybe she was. There seemed to be no limit to what she could do, though perhaps even she couldn't take on an entire crew of pirates. Everyone had faraway looks in their eyes… all except Merrill and her mages. Merrill eyed the demon warily, hands tightly clutching her staff. "And they see me for what I am."

"Ah." Hawke had always just assumed that if Bethany had been with her when this whole mess started none of it would've happened. Well, probably not, but anyway.

"Don't you touch her," Merrill growled.

"I wouldn't dream of it," the demon said taking a step back.

"Why are you here?" Hawke asked.

"I just wanted to speak with you again, Marian."

Hawke cringed. Again with that _name_. "So, you ensorcelled an entire dreadnought to track me down?"

"I find that some women are worth the trouble," she replied, leaning forward to run a sharp nail along the underside of Hawke's chin.

Hawke blushed. Oh. So, it wasn't a knife that was held to her neck after all...

Merrill silently fumed.

"You're lucky I found you."

Isabela, Varric, and a handful of the less magically inclined members of the crew were beginning to recover themselves, but some of them – Martin, for example – remained completely glassy-eyed, not unlike Adaar. Shaking her head a moment, Isabela again strode forward, hand on the hilt of her sword. "Do that one more time, and I'll have Merrill hit you over the head again."

That easy confidence vanished in the face of the captain's fury. "You are sailing into a maze of ice with no hope of finding what you seek."

Isabela raised her chin. "And what do _you_ know of it?"

"The island holds secrets that have gone unseen for since Arlathan fell," she said, turning to Merrill. The demon took a new form, taller, short black hair, blue eyes, naked… oh. It was Hawke. Merrill turned an impressive shade of red. Evidently, she was seeing what she wanted to see. Some of the crew looked from the demon, to Hawke, then back again. Oh, everyone was seeing that too. Maker, could her life get any more embarrassing?

"Merrill," Isabela said firmly.

After a few seconds, the elf shook her head, narrowed her eyes, then raised her staff.

In a flash, the demon reverted to what Hawke assumed was her true form: tall, purple, and still dressed inappropriately for the weather. "I could lead you to them," she said quickly, voice now full of fear, tail drooping limply to the floor.

"And what do you want in return?" Merrill asked.

The demon looked over her shoulder, smiling nervously down at Adaar who was still sitting on the floor and making moon-eyes at her. "I already have what I want. I only wish to not see her destroyed by Corypheus."

Murmuring broke out amongst the crew, murmuring that Isabela made no effort to stop. She was evidently just as surprised. "Corypheus," she repeated. "The _pirate_ Corypheus?"

"He is more than what he seems. He intends to reshape the world."

"Corypheus." Apparently, Isabela was having great difficulty getting over that. "He's just a pirate, a very effective pirate, I'll admit, but how could he possibly reshape anything?"

"As I said, he is more than he seems."

"Uh," Hawke cut in, scratching the back of her neck, "this Corypheus fellow wouldn't happen to be able to shoot green magic out of his hands by any chance?"

The demon smiled.

"He's the mage you met before?" Isabela asked, understanding dawning on her face.

Hawked nodded, now very glad that Isabela hadn't aired the circumstances of that meeting in front of the entire crew.

"So, I propose an exchange," the demon continued. "I lead you to what you seek, and in return you help me defeat Corypheus, and," she quickly added, "When all this is over, you allow us to depart."

"How do I know this is an equitable trade?" Isabela asked.

"Ancient, long-forgotten lore, incalculable riches, and an intact world to return home to, all against my freedom, surely that's not such a bad deal?"

Merrill whispered in Isabela's ear. Her expression turned incredulous, but she kept talking, and eventually Isabela shook her head like she had just lost another argument. She said nothing for a long moment, perhaps to make it clear to Merrill that she disagreed, before answering, "Fine, but I want her under constant surveillance." She nodded in Merrill's direction, "You choose the guards."

Merrill nodded back.

"Demons can be just as varied as the creatures of your realm. I mean no harm to any of your crew."

Said the woman who was threatening to rip her throat out a minute ago. Hawke regarded the dark smudge under her feet. "And what about the crew of _this_ ship?"

"After you ran, I tracked down the vessel you escaped on. When I learned what had become of you, I marooned the entire crew."

Fitting, she supposed. "All of them?"

"Well," the demon said as she looked over her shoulder at the qunari behind her, "Most of them."

"And what's her story?" Hawke asked.

"Her mind was conflicted. She chafed under the rule of the Qun. I have freed her from it, with her blessing."

It was impossible to know if all these words were lies or not. Demons were experts at lying. It was like talking to an Orlesian.

"The island you seek is another five-hundred miles to the south-east, but you will have to navigate endless ice floes to reach it. I could help you maneuver through them, if you aid me."

Varric cast a nervous glance at the wall of ice to their left. The wind was blowing them ever so closer to it. "I would just like to suggest that we come to a decision soon."

Isabela stepped forward, offering her hand. "I give you my word. No tricks, or I'll kill you myself."

It seemed like there was an accord. The temptation was strong to give her own opinion on making deals with shape-changing demons, but Hawke knew her opinion carried about as much weight with the crew as the demon's did.

"So," Isabela said finally. "What should we call you?"

Her answering grin betrayed impossibly sharp canines. "The demons of this plane call me Sta-evrel – and here followed flurry of syllables that made Hawke's head swim. Unbidden images of black towers, formless creatures, and nightmares she couldn't begin to describe filled her head, all to the beat of deep earthy drums. It was like listening to the unholy incantations of a darkspawn emissary.

"Yes," Merrill said, abruptly silencing her with a flash from the tip of her staff. "You can stop that right now."

Again, the demon held up her hands. It was definitely something to see Merrill, all five feet of her, intimidating a demon easily a head taller. "Names are powerful things, Merrill." The elf narrowed her eyes at the mention of her name. "In the common-speech my name would translate as something along the lines of The Entity who Oppresses its Enemies with Ferocity."

Oh, yes, very reassuring. "Really rolls off the tongue, that," Hawke muttered.

Staevrel-whatever, shrugged. "That's my true name, _Marian_."

She clenched her fists. "Fine," Hawke said with a sigh. "You're not the Hero of Ferelden, you're not this Ansala person that the qunari lady thinks you are, and I can't pronounce your true name lest it bring ruin to the whole world, so," she drawled, "I'm just going to call you Steve."

The demon narrowed her eyes.

"Steve it is," Isabela said with a firm nod. "Or no deal."

The demon stood there for a long time, holding a staring contest with Isabela, before finally shutting her glowing eyes and inclining her head.

…

The situation onboard the Siren's Call was not as tense as it probably should've been. Varric stood at the wheel with Steve at his side, quietly passing along orders to steer this way and that as the ship travelled through a lead in the ice under the faint light of a quarter-moon, the qunari dreadnought left far behind to be devoured by the ice and sea. As the walls of ice narrowed, the crew had more pressing concerns to deal with than the presence of a demon and an ensorcelled qunari aboard ship. The qunari remained at Steve's side, lost in her own world.

"So, did Corypheus ever tell you what he wanted?" Isabela asked, intentionally bumping Hawke with her shoulder as they watched the ship's progress from the stern. As a token of good will, or an indication that Isabela was just completely unconcerned with a demon being on her ship, she had removed her armor and was again wearing her heavy naval coat. It was late now and the moon was high, making her gold buttons and epaulets sparkle in the silvery light.

"He wanted me dead, it seemed," Hawke replied. "Wasn't much of a talker."

Steve spoke up without looking back at them. "He wants to return to the fade."

"And, uh, what exactly will happen if he does that?" Isabela asked. "Something bad, I take it?"

"Cataclysmic."

Hawke met Isabela's eye with a side-long glance. "Great."

Isabela patted her on the shoulder, which soon turned into a gentle massage. "I suppose it's too much to hope that he only wants back in the fade because he misses the local cuisine."

Steve looked over her shoulder. "You might say he does, at least in part. The souls of mages who walk the fade are quite a delicacy to our kind."

"Right," Hawke said, taking a step back. She turned to Isabela, "So, this Corypheus guy's plans sound rather nefarious."

"Really? I'd go so far to say they're downright dastardly… _despicable_ even."

Hawke laughed. "Uh, Isabela?"

She was still rubbing the back of Hawke's neck. "Yes, sweet thing?"

"Sorry about all this."

Isabela looked around. "This what?"

"I mean, this isn't the straightforward treasure hunt I was hoping for."

She pulled Hawke closer. "That's one thing your books did get right. A search for treasure always involves unexpected twists and turns. And if not, I would improvise a few of my own."

Hawke blushed, regarding the planks beneath her feet. "If we meet Corypheus -"

"We'll kill him," Isabela interrupted, and the fierceness in her eyes had even Hawke believing it. "I'd be doing the seas a favor, even if he weren't on a mission to destroy the world."

"And I will, of course, put my magic at your disposal when the time comes," their newfound ally added.

Hawke smiled. "Thanks, Steve."

The demon sighed.

* * *

End of Chapter 2


End file.
